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Cyber Insurance

Don’t fall into the cyber-fraud trap! Protect your business now with cyber insurance.

Do you have cyber insurance? Do you know what it is? These days, it is something that you cannot afford to ignore; if your business uses the internet, stores personal data and has an information technology infrastructure, not protecting it can leave you wide open to threats.

At Cybertekpro we are experts in the relatively new field of cyber insurance and can take care of your business effectively and affordably

If you know little of this new type of insurance, here is our FAQ help guide:

What is cyber insurance?
Who needs cyber insurance?
Why do I need cyber insurance?
Cyber Checklist
A beginners guide to Cyber Insurance

What is cyber insurance?

Cyber insurance (also referred to as data-risk insurance) offers vital protection to your business, keeping you safe from cyber-attacks. It doesn’t only cover you for the cost of data loss but also data recovery. With this type of insurance in place you will not need to worry about the expenses incurred due to recovering data or the loss of software; your business will be protected from all costs arising due to accidental damage/destruction/administrative or operational mistakes created by employees or 3^rd parties. Your 3^rd party costs will also be covered if they incur losses due to missing data.

There are many groups of criminals who now specialise in cyber-crime and data theft and with 421 billion records stolen in 2016, it is not something to be treated lightly. Every year UK businesses lose between £0.96bn and £1.44bn due to cyber-crime. It has the ability to cripple many businesses, with just one direct hit toppling even the largest organisations.

And it’s not just the financial loss that is damaging; any business shown to have lost control of private and personal client data is going to lose out massively when it comes to their reputation, which is something virtually impossible to restore.

EU regulations also make it vital for citizens’ personal data to be protected, making the following statement:

“Under EU law, personal data can only be gathered legally under strict conditions, for a legitimate purpose. Furthermore, persons or organisations which collect and manage your personal information must protect it from misuse and must respect certain rights of the data owners which are guaranteed by EU law.”

So if you are not taking the protection of personal data as seriously as you should by having cyber insurance in place, the risks to your business are enormous.

Who needs cyber insurance?

In short, every business that has a presence on the internet and uses and stores personal data. Cyber-attacks are on the rise with professional gangs realising that there is a lot of profit to be made by disrupting businesses, stealing not only money but data too.

If your business:

Holds personal customer data, such as names, addresses or banking information

Is reliant on computer systems either partly or totally to operate

Is subject to a payment card industry (PCI) merchant services agreement

You need cyber insurance now.

No business can afford to turn away the many advantages that come from using the internet but without protection in place such as cyber insurance, your days of remaining free from a cyber-attack are numbered. As well as the obvious losses suffered, heavy penalties will also be enforced and compensation demanded.

Why do I need cyber insurance?

The data used by your business is extremely valuable and by using information systems and services to store and retrieve it, unfortunately it is now more than ever exposed to security threats. As a professional business it is essential that every piece of data is kept secure as loss of it will impact critically upon your ability to trade. And it’s not just customer data – supplier and staff data also has a value all of its own, particularly where financial and medical records are concerned. Loss or corruption can and will result in not only financial but also reputational disaster. If a cyber-attack does occur, at least with cyber insurance in place you can take action against both of these forms of damage.

Having cyber insurance in place also allows you to comply fully with EU law which demands that you protect all personal data from misuse, protecting the rights of the owner. Because Cybertekpro are a specialist cyber insurance broker, we can empower you to protect yourself fully from this massive threat to your business.

With GDPR replacing the Data Protection Act in 2018, should a breach occur you will be hit with a huge fine of €20 million or 4% of turnover (whichever is greater). By having cyber insurance in place these costs will be covered as well as those incurred when notifying all injured parties.

Cyber Checklist

Because we are a specialist cyber insurance broker, we can advise you on the procedures and systems that you need to have in place in order to stay safe and prevent breaches. Use our Cyber Checklist to carry out an assessment of your current status, making changes as required to stronghold your business as you become more aware of potential weaknesses and threats that may impact upon your data and systems.

A beginners guide to Cyber Insurance

As is usual with all types of insurance, there are various types of cover available. Before you take out your cyber insurance policy you need to understand the different types of cover involved and how it will protect your business.

Here is our summary of the key areas and the insurance options available:

Business interruption – this protects against the loss of income for the period immediately following a data breach whilst your business is recovering, repairing, and rectifying its IT assets and data losses.
Credit monitoring services costs – if a data breach does occur, the Information Commissioners Office may impose a requirement for your company to carry out credit monitoring of all customers. If your cyber insurance policy includes this clause, these costs will be covered.
Cyber extortion cover – this covers all expenses related to dealing with an extortion threat including ransom payments.
Data breach notification costs – this will fund all costs associated with notifying customers/all other relevant parties that there has been a data breach.
Forensic costs – covers expenses associated with the hiring of a forensic team to help establish the identity or methods of the hacker.
Public relations costs – if your brand or business operation is at risk following a data breach then the costs of either averting or mitigating this damage can be taken care of with the insurer funding an external crisis management team to assist.
Rectification costs – if your computer network is damaged, stolen, corrupted, misused or copied by a hacker then all costs associated with repair/restoration/replacement of affected parts will be covered.
Regulatory defence and penalty costs – with central governments and public authorities putting more pressure on businesses to protect data, prosecution following a data breach is likely. If you include this clause you will be covered for all legal defence costs, fines and penalties if you are subject to a civil regulatory action.
Media liability - this will cover your legal liability to pay compensation or damages for libel, slander, breach of confidentiality, defamation or trespass following a data breach.
Network security liability- this will cover you if you incur legal liability to pay compensation or damages following failure of your network security to protect against malware, hacking, denial of service attacks and unauthorised use or access.
Privacy liability – this covers your legal liability to pay compensation or damages because of your failure to handle, manage, store, destroy or control personal data for which you are responsible following a data breach, including legal defence costs.

Click here for your cyber risk assessment