Cyber Liability Insurance
Cyber risks evolve fast — and so do the costs of an incident.
Cyber liability insurance helps protect your organization from financial loss arising from data breaches, ransomware, wire-fraud/social engineering, network outages, and privacy violations. Beyond coverage, a strong policy pairs you with incident-response experts who help contain threats, notify affected parties, and restore operations.
Why It Matters
- Attacks target every size business. Phishing, credential stuffing, and vendor compromises frequently hit small and midsize firms.
- Regulatory and contractual duties. Breach notification, PCI obligations, and data-processing agreements carry timelines and penalties.
- Business continuity at stake. Downtime, reputational harm, and recovery costs often exceed the direct loss.
What Cyber Insurance Can Cover
First-party (your costs):
- Incident Response & Forensics – 24/7 breach coach, forensic specialists, malware analysis, evidence preservation.
- Data Restoration – Recovery/recreation of corrupted or encrypted data.
- Business Interruption & Extra Expense – Lost income and added costs from network outages (including dependent/contingent BI for critical vendors).
- Cyber Extortion (Ransomware) – Negotiation, legal guidance, and approved payments where lawful.
- Crisis Management – PR support, call centers, credit/ID monitoring, and legally required notifications.
- Reputation Harm – Expenses to mitigate brand damage following a covered event.
Third-party (claims against you):
- Privacy & Network Security Liability – Defense and settlements for alleged failure to protect data or systems.
- Media Liability – IP, defamation, and advertising-injury arising from digital content.
- Regulatory Investigations & Fines (where insurable) – Defense and certain penalties tied to privacy/security laws.
- Payment Card (PCI) Assessments – Contractual assessments following a cardholder data compromise.
Optional Enhancements:
- Social Engineering / Funds Transfer Fraud (FTF)
- System Failure (non-malicious outage) BI
- Bricking / Hardware Replacement
- Reputational Loss (measured revenue drop)
- Prior Acts Coverage
Built-In Risk Control (What You Get Beyond a Policy)
- Readiness & Hardening – Pre-breach scans, phishing simulations, MFA/BYOD guidance, tabletop exercises.
- Vendor & Supply-Chain Support – Tools to assess third-party/4th-party dependencies and track remediation.
- Playbooks & Templates – Incident-response plans, notification scripts, and regulatory timelines.
- Preferred Partners – Pre-negotiated rates with forensics, legal, PR, and restoration providers.
Who Needs Cyber Coverage?
Any organization that:
- Stores customer, employee, or patient data
- Accepts card payments or processes online transactions
- Relies on cloud apps, vendors, or remote access
- Would suffer materially from system downtime or data loss
Underwriting Basics (How to Be “Bind-Ready”)
Most carriers now expect:
- MFA on email, VPN, and privileged accounts
- EDR/XDR on endpoints and 24/7 alerting/response (SOC or MDR)
- Regular/offline backups with recovery testing and immutability
- Email security (DMARC, anti-phish, attachment sandboxing)
- Patch & vulnerability management with defined SLAs
- Incident Response Plan with at least annual tabletop
Sample Claim Scenarios
- Ransomware & Downtime: Encrypted ERP halts shipments. Policy covers forensics, restoration, business interruption, and extortion response.
- Vendor Breach: SaaS provider compromise exposes your client data. Contingent BI and privacy liability respond.
- Wire Fraud: Spoofed supplier emails redirect payments. Social-engineering/FTF endorsement reimburses loss (subject to controls).
- PCI Event: Compromised POS terminals trigger forensic audit and assessments. PCI coverage applies.
Getting the Right Fit
We’ll review your tech stack, vendors, data flows, and existing controls to structure limits, retentions, and endorsements that match your risk profile and contracts. We also coordinate your general liability, property/BI, crime, and professional liability to avoid gaps.