Is your company’s reputation being crushed by business interruption or a cyber-incident?

When major high street names like M&S, Co-op, and Harrods find themselves facing the unseen but highly damaging might of cyber criminals, they bring out the big PR and IT guns for an exercise in damage control. Not only do specialist recovery teams work round the clock to fix shattered payment systems and ringfence customer data, but there’s also the reputational “fixers” who immediately get to work issuing carefully worded press releases, or alternatively negotiating with the media to limit what the public hear about. There’s also likely to be an army of legal experts using their expertise to halt the tidal wave of potential fallout that could dent a well-established company’s image.

Understanding the issue

For smaller enterprises, any break in business operations – whether that’s caused by a cyber-breach, an incident at a manufacturing base, chasm in the supply chain, or even leaked information from an employee that will show the company in a poor light – recovering trust and a well-established reputation for reliability and good service has the potential to cause long-term harm unless there’s a robust contingency plan in place. And that’s where a business interruption strategy earns its stripes – which should include the appropriate business insurance.

Whether the issue is a cyber-attack that brings all online and digital transactions to a halt, such as the one that began Easter weekend 2025 on M&S, or the still-ongoing Post Office scandal, reputational recovery takes time and expert handling. And in the age of influencers and online reviews, reputational and brand perception and trust is as fundamental as product quality and a fair price.

Honesty is essential

Any recovery strategy or business continuity plan must prioritise not just pressing the restart button on a software platform or an engaging social media post. You should also look to understand if and when individuals and/or the ICO should be notified, and the legal team from your incident response will be able to advise you on this. If it is established, honest, transparent, and clear communications with customers, stakeholders, staff, and media sources should be pursued. And once those channels have been opened, regular updates and outlets for people to feed back and respond are vital. If you’re a company facing an issue, do not underestimate the intelligence or intuition of anyone beyond your business. Being truthful, even if that may involve some temporary loss or negative press, is a much smoother path to recovery than trying to disguise the facts.

Consistency is key

In tandem with honesty and transparency, another critical factor is consistency. Sudden changes in company behaviour and knee-jerk reactions to a crisis can cause added consternation and suspicion for customers and stakeholders alike. For example, displaying an overt ‘Everything is absolutely fine’ reaction to a situation that clearly isn’t will only increase wariness and the sense that this is a useless sticking plaster on a very deep wound. A response which is more likely to garner both respect and even sympathy is: ‘Everything is not okay, but here’s what we’re planning to do in order to make things better.’

Making insurance a central part of your recovery plan

Business interruption insurance, or cyber insurance, is not just a policy to help clear up the financial mess once an incident has occurred. It can be used to pave the way for reputational recovery and improvement – after all, securing PR, social media, and cyber experts all costs money. With the right business interruption insurance policy, you’ll get much more than a payout for a claim; you’ll get risk and crisis management insight, strategic guidance, and cover specifically targeted at protection and recovery from reputational damage and loss.

You can read more about the importance and value of business interruption and cyber insurance in our previous articles on the topics here and here. 

At Howden, our expert team understands the effort that goes into building a positive business reputation, and appreciate how easily that can come undone. If you want to protect your company’s good name and brand, or want to know more about cyber security, talk to us today on 020 7123 3866 or visit here for a quote. Your reputation depends on it.