We study the properties of ruin-based risk measures, which are defined within the general class of discrete-time risk models for an insurance portfolio. Desirable properties of the ruin-based risk measures, such as homogeneity, subadditivity, convexity, consistency to the multivariate usual stochastic order, consistency to the multivariate increasing convex order, and consistency to the supermodular order, are examined. Specific risk models are considered. We also apply some of our ruin-based risk measures to identify the contributions of the components to riskiness of an insurance portfolio.