Abstract: A method of categorizing risk events is presented. A minimal list of predetermined questions is presented to a user seeking to “type” a risk event. The questions are probative regarding the event, but non-intuitive compared to traditional questions that elicit an event narrative. The answers to the questions define “attributes of the event”. The method maps the answers to lists of possible event types. Each successive answer generates another list of possible event types. The lists of possible event types are then combined to yield one or more common event types for the occurrence of a risk event being typed. In the preferred embodiment, five questions have been found to be sufficient to type most, if not all, event occurrences. The result is one or more event types, preferably one event type that is recorded for each risk event occurrence.