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What you get · Processes

Every process as a tube map, with its risks and controls on each step.

A process map shows how the business runs, step by step. Context Visualised draws your operating model as a tube map. Lines are processes, stops are key activities, and interchanges are where one team hands over to another. Every stop opens into its steps, each with inputs, outputs, risks and controls. That map is the procedure.

I have rarely seen a procedure document stop a failure. I have seen a map do it.

Waleed Sarwar, Founder
Talk to us Follow Halden

Halden is a fictitious Lloyd's managing agent. We run it in CoVi Analytics and publish its reports one at a time.

The problem

A procedure nobody uses is already out of date.

Most firms keep procedures in Word documents on shared drives. They were right when they were written. The work moved on, and the documents did not. The risk register sits somewhere else, and the controls sit in a third place. So nobody can say which step a risk arises at, or which control holds it.

The regulators want exactly that link. Under the FCA's operational resilience rules (PS21/3), firms had to map and test their important business services by 31 March 2025. From 18 March 2027, the PRA and FCA also ask for a register of material third-party arrangements.

What you get today
  • Procedure documents last updated years ago
  • Risks in a register, with no step attached
  • Controls in a library, with no process attached
  • Third parties in a contract list
What you need
  • Procedures people use, because they are the map
  • Each risk on the step where it arises
  • Each control on the step where it works
  • Partners on the map, next to the services that depend on them
How we solve it

One map of the business. Each stop opens into its procedure.

This is the operating model of Halden, our fictitious managing agent. The front office runs from distribution to claims and outwards reinsurance. The back office runs finance, actuarial, risk, compliance, IT and people. Click a stop to open its process flow.

  1. First you see
  2. Then you drill into
  3. Behind it

First you see the tube map. Each line is a process. Any stop with a failed control or an active incident carries a badge.

Halden · Processes · 30 Sep 2026

How does a claim become a booked reserve, and where can it fail?

  • Process lines145 front office · 9 back office
  • Documented flows2Reserving and DA oversight, step by step
  • Failed controls on the map2✕ Coverholder audits, at DA oversight · ✕ Claims authority agreement, at Reserving
  • Open incidents4Each shows on every stop its control touches

ClickTap to explore Click a stop to open its process flow.

Everything that touches brokers and policyholders: winning business, writing it, servicing it and paying claims.

Front office process map Halden's front office as a process tube map. Five lines: distribution, underwriting, policy servicing, claims and outwards reinsurance. DA oversight on the distribution line has one failed control, C-137 coverholder audits, and three active incidents. Reserving on the claims line has one failed control, C-139 claims authority agreement, and two active incidents. Every other stop is clear. Brokers Coverholders DA oversight Owned coverholder Fronting partners Submission Triage Pricing Peer review Bind & issue Notification Adjusting Reserving Settlement Recoveries Programme design Placement Cessions Endorsements Bordereaux Renewal
  • Distribution
  • Underwriting
  • Policy servicing (loops back to distribution)
  • Claims
  • Outwards reinsurance
  • ✕1Failed control
  • ⚠2Active incidents
  • Opens a process flow

Every line on the front office map

Process map · Claims and Actuarial & capital

Reserving

How a claim turns into a booked reserve: case reserves from claims, IBNR from actuarial, signed off by committee.

  • 7Activities · 9 risks
  • 1/12Controls failed
  • 2Active incidents

Process flow · open a step

  2. Large loss above threshold?

Red badges count failed controls. Outlined badges count active incidents raised against a control mapped to that step. Dashed boxes are decisions; committee steps are tagged where they sit in the flow.

Lines are processes. Stops are key activities. Interchanges are where one team hands over to another. A failed control turns its stop red.

Halden is fictitious. Source: front office process map, process documents, risk register, controls by team, incident log at 30 Sep 2026

Halden's operating model has 14 tube lines, 5 in the front office and 9 in the back office. The DA oversight stop has 10 activities, 11 risks and 15 controls. One control has failed, and 3 incidents are active.

  1. Callout 1: At Halden, DA oversight shows a failed coverholder audit, and Reserving a failed claims authority agreement.Process tube map

  2. Callout 2: DA oversight carries three active incidents, each raised against a control mapped to that stop.Process tube map; Incident log

  3. Callout 3: In Halden's reserving flow, the large loss committee sits inside the process it acts on.Process tube map

Each of those red stops holds one of the firm's two high risks, and both risks are operational.

What we think

The map is the procedure.

  • One thing to keep right

    A procedure document and a register drift apart. A map that holds the steps, the risks and the controls has nothing to drift from.

  • Problems show where they happen

    A failed control turns its stop red. An incident appears on every step where its control is mapped.

  • Committees sit where they act

    A committee is a step in the flow it governs, not a box on a separate chart.

What's in it

How each process is documented.

Every step in a process flow carries five things:

  • Inputs: what the step needs, such as an application, a bordereau or a loss notification.
  • What happens: the work, in a few plain sentences.
  • Outputs: what the step produces and who it goes to.
  • Risks: the risks in the register that arise at this step, with their residual rating.
  • Controls: the controls that hold those risks, with their status and any active incident.

Around the steps:

  • Decisions as branches, such as "Risks outside authority found?"
  • Committees where they sit in the flow, with who they report to.
  • Interchanges where one team hands over to another.
  • Partners on the stops that depend on them, such as coverholders and fronting insurers.

How it works

  1. We map your processes with you.

    We start from your existing procedures and draw them as lines and stops.

  2. We link the steps.

    Each step to the risks in your register and the controls in your library.

  3. Process owners keep their lines right.

    The map is the procedure, so updating one updates the other.

Questions

Questions risk teams ask

What does operational resilience mapping involve for an insurer?

It traces each important business service to the processes, people, systems and third parties behind it. Then it tests whether the service can stay within impact tolerance in severe but plausible scenarios. A process map with risks and controls on each step gives you that trace in one place.

What is a material third-party arrangement, and where does it show on a process map?

From 18 March 2027, PS7/26 and PS26/2 ask firms to keep a register of material third-party arrangements and submit it each year. These include the arrangements an important business service depends on. On a process map, each partner sits on the stops that rely on it. So the register and the map point to the same thing.

Who uses this view

Every team runs part of the map.

Proof

Follow a process through Halden.

Halden is our fictitious managing agent. Its process map links each stop to the controls board, the incident log and the risk register. You can follow one failure through the business.

Want your procedures as a map?

Tell us which process gives you the most trouble. We will show you how it would look on the map, using Halden as the starting point.

Talk to us Take the risk reporting check

Built by Context Visualised, in London since 2016, Lloyd's Lab Cohort 2. Founded by Waleed Sarwar, former interim Head of Risk at Liberty Mutual, Markel and Bupa, who worked on Solvency II policy at the Bank of England.

Sources (3)
  • FCA PS21/3 "Building operational resilience", 29 March 2021; transition ended 31 March 2025. Map and test important business services so they stay within impact tolerance in severe but plausible scenarios. www.fca.org.uk
  • PRA PS7/26 "Operational incident and third-party reporting" (new SS1/26; SS2/21 chapter 5 updated), 18 March 2026, applies from 18 March 2027. Notify and keep a register of material third-party arrangements. Scope includes the Society of Lloyd's and managing agents. www.bankofengland.co.uk
  • FCA PS26/2 "Operational incident and third party reporting" (FG26/3, FG26/4), March 2026, applies from 18 March 2027. FCA side of the same regime. The register applies to Solvency II and enhanced SM&CR firms, among others. www.fca.org.uk