Cyber Insurance
Sceptical about Cyber insurance and its role in your risk management plan? You’re not alone – until you get attacked. When the very survival of your business is under threat, Cyber insurance gives you someone to turn to.
Cyber risk is universal; every company is attempting to mitigate it somehow. With risk mitigation initiatives, you rightly demand bang for your buck. Standalone Cyber insurance is one of the most inexpensive components of your risk management planning.
Buying a Cyber policy is one of the most cost effective risk management options and can result in significantly reduced spend on more expensive Professional Indemnity cover
Cyber insurance coverage highlights
1. Multi-expert rapid response, 24/7
A big difference between cyber and other insurances is the proactive approach. Compare it with home contents insurance for example: when a flood hits, you arrange rectifying the problem yourself, buy new carpets yourself and wait, fingers crossed, for the insurance company to pay you back.
Cyber insurance isn’t like that.
Buying cyber cover gives you rapid response technical and legal support from the first indication of trouble, 24/7.
You call one number and your expert panel manages the response from there, sending you;
- Forensic IT trouble-shooters with skills beyond what most companies have ready access to
- Specialist IT lawyers who deal with similar crises frequently
- Experienced crisis management PR consultants.
- Combined expertise and contacts will help mitigate damage to your reputation, from the moment you alert them.
2. Paying for the financial fall out afterwards
In addition to rapid incident response, Cyber insurance is also there to pick up the tab for costs incurred as a result of a breach.
A cyber-attack generates significant and varied financial liabilities, beyond the scope of what might be covered by crime or P.I. policies.
Two examples of after-the-fact liabilities:
a) GDPR and the SDPA require all persons affected by the breach be notified in a timely fashion. Even quite small companies could find themselves with a bill of millions of Krona.
b) There is every chance you could be sued for your cyber breach. Sony, for example, recently elected to settle out of court on a huge class-action suit. That suit was from employees and ex-employees, so it’s not only your customer database you have to worry about.
Cyber insurance would be ready to pay legal costs, settlements and risk mitigation expenses in response to a breach.
3. Reimbursing monetary losses from phishing
When a phishing attack means your funds go missing, Cyber insurance is equipped to reimburse you.
Criminal coders are usually one step ahead of the cybersecurity community.
The weakest link in your cyber defence is your employees. However much training you give, it is still statistically quite likely someone will click on a link and live to regret it.
These two facts of life mean that phishing is a threat you can only ever reduce, however much you spend on antivirus, antimalware and firewalls.
4. Business interruption cover
When your business is unable to trade due to a cyber-attack, Cyber insurance will cover missed profits for that period.
We hope this is a moot point, due to the expertise of our rapid incident responders in getting you back to business-as-usual quickly. But under the terms of a well-worded cyber policy, you will be covered for business interruption, just for extra peace of mind.
5. Pre-planned interaction with policies you already have
A common buying problem covering a risk twice across two polices. Or equally common, failing to bridge a gap between policies, where a massive exposure lurks.
For example, the interaction and overlap between Professional Indemnity, Crime and computer, and Cyber insurance policies causes much confusion – and many a nasty surprise.
Many clients ask for our help to rebuild their risk portfolio into something more robust – and often, more affordable than existing solutions too.
Howden like to think holistically. If you let us look through your existing policies we can prevent you paying too much, to get too little.
It’s a myth that cyber is expensive – when you understand what you are buying it offers unrivalled value, safeguarding your business where it is most vulnerable