Willis, a subsidiary of WTW, has released its 2026 Political Risk Survey, emphasizing that although the survey is released as conflicts in the Middle East escalate, risks driven by economic policies continue to outweigh risks arising from international conflicts.
Willis said that respondents regard tariffs caused by international violent conflicts as the primary political risk, and 61% of respondents believe that the impact of rising tariffs is the most difficult to manage.
61% of respondents also said their companies have experienced negative financial impacts from tariffs.
Sam Wilkin, director of political risk analysis at Willis, said: “Surprisingly, while conflict in the Middle East dominates the headlines, the impact of tariffs continues to dominate business concerns.
“But this finding is consistent with other trends depicted by our survey sample. The political risk map of 2026 is more than a map of war zones. It is a map of contested systems—trade systems, technology systems, information systems, and domestic political systems.
“For global companies, political risk is no longer the risk of a few unstable regions, but the risk of an increasingly unstable world order. This report reveals what is most difficult for companies to manage in this fundamentally changing geopolitical landscape.”
Elsewhere in the report, Willis noted that 39% of companies surveyed believe they face greater risks due to policy decisions by their own governments.
At the same time, 84% of respondents said they were actively preparing or considering preparing for a future in which the “East” and “West” parts of the global economy may need to operate as structurally independent systems.
The survey also showed the share of respondents reporting credit and political risk insurance losses related to geopolitical events was the second-highest in the survey’s nine-year history.
“Related losses have exceeded $250 million for the third consecutive year, with increased interest in political risk and trade credit insurance as a means of managing geopolitical risk,” Willis said.
Sixty-one percent of respondents cited economic coercion or retaliation, including official or unofficial sanctions, threats, tariffs and export embargoes on key goods, as the main gray area issue related to aggression.
Meanwhile, 65% of companies noted that attacks on infrastructure, including cutting undersea cables, sabotaging pipelines, sabotaging power stations and setting warehouses on fire, remain the biggest gray zone threat related to aggression.
Oxford Analytica conducts the annual political risk survey on behalf of WTW, combining in-depth interviews with broader surveys.
The survey reportedly had 57 respondents and the interview panel had 15 participants. The survey sample is said to be representative of global businesses across geographic regions, industries and company sizes.