What Red Flags mean
How Senserity decides which findings to surface as Red Flags, and what to do when you see one.
Red Flags are the subset of insight findings that Senserity considers most important for you to see immediately. They appear in two places: on the company's Summary tab alongside the AI-generated executive summary, and at the top of the Categories tab before you scroll into the full category breakdown.
What qualifies as a Red Flag
A finding is promoted to a Red Flag when it meets one of two conditions:
The test is Critical severity and has failed. Critical tests cover the most serious risk signals: active sanctions matches, disqualified directors, winding-up orders, and similar findings. Every failed Critical test produces a Red Flag.
The test is a specific Critical-severity trigger with a time-decay rule. Certain findings (such as HSE fatality convictions and financial crime or terrorism media exposure) are checked against how recently they occurred. Recent findings trigger higher-tier Red Flags; older findings trigger lower tiers or no Red Flag at all.
Info, Low, Medium, and High severity findings never appear as Red Flags. Red Flags are reserved exclusively for Critical-severity test failures.
What Red Flags are not
Red Flags are not a complete picture of everything wrong with a company. They are a triage mechanism, a way to surface the most important findings so you can decide whether further investigation is warranted.
A company with no Red Flags may still have meaningful risk. It may have several Medium-severity findings that together push its score into a C grade, or it may have a Low-severity finding that is specifically significant for your sector or relationship type. Red Flags are a starting point, not a sign-off.
How to act on a Red Flag
Each Red Flag card shows the test name, a description of what was found, and a link to the underlying source data where applicable. Clicking the Red Flag takes you to the full test result inside the relevant risk category.
From the test result you can:
- Read the full description and evidence.
- Open a review to leave a note or discuss the finding with a colleague.
- Mark the finding as acknowledged if your organisation has assessed it and decided to proceed.
Red Flags and scoring
Red Flags directly affect the overall risk score. When one or more Red Flag conditions are detected, a bonus is added to the weighted average of category scores. Only the highest-tier bonus applies; they do not stack.
| Tier | Bonus | Triggers |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 | +60 | Existential: confirmed company sanctions match, dissolution / liquidation / administration, compulsory winding-up order |
| Tier 2 | +40 | Severe: director or PSC sanctions, active insolvency, disqualified person serving, recent HSE fatality conviction |
| Tier 3 | +20 | Significant: any critical test failure, recent financial crime or terrorism media exposure, active moratorium |
The final score is capped at 100. A company with a weighted average of 25 and a Tier 2 Red Flag would receive a final score of 65 (25 + 40).
Acknowledging a Red Flag in the interface marks it as reviewed for your team's awareness, but does not change the company's risk score. The score is recalculated each time the company is re-enriched.
Note that the Red Flag mechanism operates at the overall score level. At the category level, a separate severity escalation factor addresses the dilution of critical and high-severity failures within large categories.
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