Apartment owners and management companies have a lot to worry about in keeping their communities safe and secure, and there are always new factors emerging to further add to the complexities of risk management. Multi-Housing News reached out to property owners, property managers and the insurance companies who cover them to see what the top risk concerns are in 2015, and the challenges of insuring those risks in the years ahead. What type of risk are you or your company most concerned about insuring against today? Mark Mascia: Cap rate expansion outpacing rental growth. The market has seen phenomenal growth in rents with limited new supply to slow it down. However now that cap rates are at historically low levels throughout most markets in the country there isn’t a whole lot of room for them to go anywhere but up. So as cap rates expand lowering the value of their property they need to keep increasing rents just to stay even on values. For longer-term cash flow owners this isn’t as much of a concern, but for REITS with mark to market pricing and for companies who had short-term business plans this is a real risk to their investments. Heidi A. Much: For Village Green, we’re trying to get our arms around our cyber exposure. We all use a multitude of providers in our industry—someone who does your accounting data, your rider insurance, your employee screening—and while we don’t necessarily have confidential information stored, we are using providers who have that information stored. We’re trying to understand what’s out there, what are they doing, what is their disaster plan and recovery plan? Steve Heimler: Number one is a data breach. Everyone is a target, and we do have information in the hands of a...

Jonathan Gray’s continued fast pace of acquisitions won him top honors in this year’s CPE Executive of the Year Awards. The Blackstone Group global head of real estate was selected as Executive of the Year for the third consecutive year. He was also named the 2013 Investor of the Year. Now in its 17th year, Commercial Property Executive’s annual executive awards program recognizes industry leaders—those who have demonstrated foresight, ingenuity, character, innovation and strategic thinking during the past year. The program is unique in that winners are determined by a peer vote among the leading commercial real estate executives that comprise the CPE 100 executive board. “The awards program has long been respected among executives because of the peer vote,” noted CPE editorial director Suzann Silverman. “It reveals who the commercial real estate industry’s top executives regard as setting an example for success and taking the industry to new levels.” Including 17 categories, the awards feature one Lifetime Achievement honoree but a first place and two honorable mention winners for each of the other categories. Investment seems to be top of mind today, as the two honorable mention awardees in the Investor of the Year category also were awarded in the Executive of the Year category—resulting in an essential clean sweep of the categories by Gray; Nicholas Schorsch, chairman & CEO of American Realty Capital; and Barry Sternlicht, chairman & CEO of Starwood Capital Group. Hines president & CEO Jeffrey Hines also received two first-place awards. Another repeat winner, he was named both the 2013 Developer of the Year and Office Property Executive of the Year. Last year, Hines won honorable mention in the Executive of the Year and Sustainability Executive of the Year categories. The other honorable mention winner to achieve two awards...