Emerging risk arises out of challenge to orthodoxy, making links where none existed and, the completely new. Challenge to orthodoxy can only be identified if first orthodoxy is thoroughly understood in terms that the common law works with. Making links means you need to know how it works. Fortunately the lead time for reliable knowledge is such that the completely new is usually known long before it has market presence, if you know what you are looking at.
The major part of the work is concerned with personal injury simply because this field provides so many opportunities for IBNR and sudden changes in exposure when a new precedent is created. An example of temporal correlation.
However, other areas can give rise to liabilities, some will be minor, such as new building materials, most will evolve gradually such as the effects of climate change on property values (professional indemnity problem) and some will produce correlated losses such as flooding which interrupts power generation and transmission. An example of geographic temporal correlation.
All trends must be monitored.
In particular correlation between losses is a major concern. Predicting correlation and preventing it is a new concept for many in Government. Insurers already have risk management options for dealing with it, but as resilience becomes more stretched new correlations will emerge.