In all sorts of cyberattacks, organisations have become an increasing issue. As a consequence, many turn to cyber insurance to alleviate some of the consequences of an incident.
Cyber insurance is a type of insurance which protects firms against cyber attacks and hacking threats. This insurance is usually called cyber liability insurance. A cyber-insurance policy can help reduce business disturbances and their consequences during a cyber attack. The cost of certain aspects of managing and recovering from the attack can also be covered.
Cyber insurance cannot protect companies against certain things, and they must understand what is covered and, more importantly, what is not covered by the coverage plan. Although cyber insurance can help an attack, they are still responsible for their cyber security and cannot transfer it to the insurance company.
Who Requires Cyber Insurance?
Cyberinsurance can be of benefit to any company having an online part, or sends or maintains electronic data and to any technology dependent organisation, which is almost every business, to perform its operations.
Private personal information can be useful for cyber criminals trying to breach and steal a network such as customer or contact details, intellectual property or confidential financial information.
Hackers could use ransomware to ruin a network. Cyber insurance coverage, including ransomware, could help organisations that suffered from such assaults to escape their distress.
What is the Cost of Cyber Insurance?
Different criteria, including size and yearly revenue, determine the costs of cyber insurance.
The industries in which the company operates include other considerations.
The kind of data that it handles regularly.
The network’s overall security.
An organisation with a negative reputation for cybersecurity and a history of hacking or data breach will certainly charge more for the coverage of cyber insurance than for a firm reputation for safekeeping. Because of their sensitivities, cyber insurance plans are likely to be more expensive in sectors like health and finance.
The pandemic has well documented the move to digital solutions over the last year. The dramatic change from home to work has changed our thinking about our workplace fundamentally. This change has had a wide range of implications on the cyber risk landscape. In addition to current trends such as the continuous explosion of ransomware and an increase in the management of remote workers, several major cyber-risk events, such as the Twitter breach, Magento hack and Solarwinds hack, marked 2020.
As the cyber insurance world sits at the crossroads of insurance and cyber security, underwriters must look to the future in this area, significantly because the risk scope can change as quickly as possible. In that respect, Accenture and CyberCube collaborated on trends and forecasts that were to be looked at in 2021. Some are progressive and others may be indicative of a material shift in our market.
A hardening market
In the second half of 2021, the hardening market across the insurance industry rose. The dust is still diminishing during the renewal period of 1 January, but there are clear rates of increases and tightening of capacity and terms within the cyber (re)insurance market. There are inevitably different segments of the impact, especially those companies that suffered losses. The loss history of the last few years has shown that large programmes no longer see high excess layers as being outside the burning layer, thus the capacity in this area has shrunk for a lot more participants, often with much higher prices, to reach the required limits.
Pricing convergence
With the cyber market maturing, actuaries were assigned with increasing focus to review portfolios. Further, the previous volatility of price variance has decreased, given that individual underwriters and teams have moved between different market players. There has emerged a growing agreement with price matches on the most risky and best-in-class risks. In years gone by, and sometimes in order of size, there were significant price differences for the same risk. In 2021, the overall price of the risk will be increased by a greater degree of agreement on the market.The competition will continue with a strong focus on policy language, end-to-end risk management (both pre- and post-loss) services and claims managing experience.
Technology transformation
Internet and network technology will continue to expand dramatically along with the associated risks. 5G networks’ hyper-connectivity will become mainstream in 2021, allowing much quicker and more reliable data and malware transmissions. This marks the commonly understood end of the “network perimeter,” making it difficult for corporate networks to defend. With extensive consumer applications and expanded industrial uses the internet of things will also increase its presence. The continuous transition to cloud computing will strengthen our confidence in a few critical platforms in space.