Furthermore, weather and navigational equipment should be state of the art and also checked regularly for possible malfunctions. These risks are unknown, but can become known on a daily basis by means of monitoring and careful investigation and planning. Risks that are not known are the most challenging of a company's risk management program. Such risks might occur by means of unforeseen accidents or oversight as a result of noncompliance with existing risk regulations. In addition to unforeseen natural occurrences such as earthquakes, for example, the human factor also plays a significant role in unknown risk factors.

The employer of a company may for example be unaware of an employee's increasing mental instability. The looming breakdown may be the result of a number of personal factors that the employers has not been informed about. Such instability may also be difficult to monitor, particularly in a company with a large number of...

Concomitantly, significant financial implications are possible for the company, including the possibility of law suits or a loss of worker hours as a result.
In any company, the human factor poses the greatest possibility of the unknown. To proactively handle such matters, a manager might wish to monitor his workforce on a regular basis for factors such as excessive work or personal pressure. Employees themselves can also be charged with the responsibility of monitoring the stress factor in each division of the company. The most important factor in mitigating the unknown is to estimate the possibilities of failure or risk, and become familiar with the unknown. Furthermore, an important factor is that the manager be aware that not all unknowns can be covered, but that events of disaster and loss can be learned from. Unknown risks can then be handled from both the retrospective position and from the perspective of future potentiality.