Insurance Carriers are Setting New Cyber Standards

The malicious nature of cyber criminals has prompted cyber insurance carriers to implement new guidelines for clients. Speak with our expert underwriter, Lexi Johnson, today to make sure your clients are up-to-date on these guidelines.

Recent Ransomware Events

Analysis on recent ransomware events between August 2020 and July 2021 have shown a 64% increase in attacks year over year. In addition, 44% of the attacks over the past 12 months had an average ransom ask per incident of over $10 million. Only 8% of attacks had a ransom ask less than $10 million and 14% of attacks asked for over $30 million in ransom.

Best Practices to Prevent Ransomware Attacks

“Ransomware has by far been driving the most losses in the cyber insurance industry,” Ross Ingersoll, the cyber practice leader at Holmes Murphy, said. “Insurance carriers have identified multi-factored authentication (MFA) as the leading indicator to prevent ransomware attacks.” 

Ingersoll explained that there needs to be a recalibration of baseline underwriting controls, and MFA has been deemed a minimum guideline for an organization to be insurable when it comes to cyber. In addition to MFA, employee training remains one of the most important priorities that should be on every company's list. While employees are your biggest asset, they are also your biggest liability.

Other points of emphasis include having a breach response plan as well as testing backups regularly.

Data is Key to Understanding Cyber Losses

Typically, Property & Casualty carriers have access to years of data to understand what drives losses. However, cyber is unique in the sense that carriers don't have access to much data. In just the last 6 to 24 months, carriers have only started to uncover what drives losses and what can prevent these losses from occurring.

Make Sure Your Clients are Covered

When it comes to cyber, CID has you and your clients covered. Navigate through our website for applications, proposal templates, marketing flyers and everything else you need to cover all your insureds with comprehensive cyber liability insurance.

When you are ready to start quoting, send completed applications to submissions@cidinsurance.com. You can also try our web and phone quoting options with USLI.