Cyber Liability Insurance

Cyber insurance is a specialized form of insurance that’s made for today’s digital age. It’s uniquely designed to help protect businesses from online threats and the risks that potential data breaches post. As business’ reliance on computers, mobile devices, and cloud-based services grows, so does the risk of online threats and data breaches.

Because so many businesses use computers and mobile devices, cyber coverage is quickly becoming a form of insurance that most businesses should have. Businesses that rely heavily on sensitive information, such as banks and investment advisors that have client’s financial details, ought to consider getting a cyber policy. A breach at one of these businesses could be extremely costly, for it could directly impact client’s financial accounts. Even a restaurant that accepts online reservations might be held liable for any diners’ details that are lost through an online attack.

Cyber insurance policies offer a variety of protections against emerging online and data-related threats. When a business succumbs to a covered attack or experiences a covered data breach, a cyber policy might reimburse the business for revenue that’s lost because operations had to be temporarily stopped or slowed, revenue that’s lost because a business’ reputation is tarnished by the incident, reparations that are owed to affected customers or clients, expenses associated with offering affected individuals credit monitoring services, the cost of hiring programmers to identify and address any targeted security weakness, forensics costs, and costs for legal and public relations services.

Ransomware attacks are online attacks that hold a business’ data hostage for a ransom payment. These kinds of online attacks are becoming more and more common. Some cyber policies provide protection from this type of threat, but not all do yet.

It’s usually advisable to get cyber insurance regardless of whether a business has commercial property insurance, because the two types of insurance offer different protections. Commercial property policies may offer coverage for computers, but their protections are often limited to hardware. In contrast, cyber policies are generally designed to help protect the information that’s stored on computers (or in the cloud). Cyber policies normally safeguard data from being stolen or otherwise compromised. Without a cyber policy, businesses frequently have little or no protection for the information that’s stored on their computers.