Cyber Insurance
Compare active cyber insurance quotes for small business and corporates
Cyber insurance can start from £323 annually for a £1 million limit, however the cover can cost thousands per annum for larger companies or tech companies with a hosted or managed service
What is cyber insurance?
Cyber insurance, also known as cyber liability insurance or cybersecurity cover, offers financial protection and expert support to help recover from a cyber attack or data breach. Cyber insurance coverage can provide the necessary resources to cover your legal liabilities, pay ransomware demands, cover your loss of profits, and pay a variety of costs and expenses to recover from a cyber event.
Read more about what cyber insurance covers
Complete our digital onboarding to compare cyber insurance quotes. We work with insurers that can undertake a non-intrusive scan of your websites to assess your risk exposure to a cyber attack, data breach or ransom demand.
Do you need cyber insurance?
It is commonly accepted that businesses of all sizes require protection and expert support against evolving digital threats. A cyber insurance policy can help businesses safeguard their finances, operations, and reputation, by providing protection and resources to navigate a cyber attack or data breach.
Cyber insurance can protect against a wide range of cyber threats including: data breaches, malware attacks, phishing scams, ransomware, denial-of-service attacks, network disruptions, employee actions, social engineering fraud, IT failures, and vendor failures.
Additionally, cyber insurance can provide for the costs and expenses related to the theft of personally identifiable information, unauthorised access to sensitive data, reputational damage, and regulatory compliance and breach notification. Not to mention paying for the devastating consequences of criminals that seek to profit from a ransomware attack.
What does cyber insurance cover?
Policies can be complex and difficult to provide an easy comparison - however cyber insurance can be separated into two broad coverage sections: 1) First-party cyber insurance, which covers your costs and expenses; and 2) Third-party cyber insurance, also know as network security and privacy liability, which covers your legal liabilities and legal defence.
1st Party Cover
Includes your costs and expenses arising from a cyber incident, including extortion demands, notification costs, forensic investigation, system damage, regulatory fines, and business interruption loss of profits and increased costs.
3rd Party Cover
Includes your legal liabilities, damages awarded by a court, and the legal expenses to defend any allegations. Coverage is commonly requested by clients under contract to ensure they can seek compensation against you.
Incident Response
Will provide access to specialist incident response services associated with a cyber attack, criminal extortion, and data leaks. By addressing these incidents early, these services can reduce the potential impact and financial consequences.
Compare quotes for cyber security insurance to protect your business from cyber crime
Cyber insurance starts from £323 per annum for small businessesHow much does cyber insurance cost and what impacts your premiums?
Business activities
The industry which you work will impact your susceptibility to breaches, and therefore increase your cyber insurance cost. For example, the following industries carry an increased exposure to claims: accountants, casinos, data aggregators, education sector, financial services, hospitals, hotels, medical industry, payroll services, professional services, solicitors, telecommunications, trading platforms, online gaming, and payment card processors.
Size of turnover
Turnover is a direct cyber risk rating factor for insurers to calculate your premium cost. The larger your business the higher premiums your business will be required to pay. There will also be certain thresholds, where insurers will provide discounted rates to grow their portfolio. For example, companies with a turnover less than £1 million is the most competitive. Whereas there is significantly less insurer competition when your turnover exceeds £100 million.
Data processed
The number of individual data subjects (otherwise known as personally identifiable individuals PII) is another direct cyber risk rating factor for insurers. Less than 25,000 is commonly acceptable, once you breach the 100,000 or 250,000 threshold this will impact insurers decision making. In addition, the type of data you hold or process will impact your premium. Sensitive data such as: banking, card details, and medical information is perceived as the highest risk. The larger and more sensitive the data you process or hold the greater risk to insurers and will attract higher premium charges.
Territorial scope
Insurers will want to understand your turnover split by territory. Certain countries such as the US are more litigious in nature and allow for class actions (otherwise known as collective actions) on an opt-in basis which means their ability to bring a demand for compensation that much easier in a court of law. The higher exposure to a legal system which makes more frequent and higher awards means insurers will need to charge higher premiums when calculating the cost of your policy.
Risk management
There is a growing emphasis from insurers requiring minimum controls as conditions within the policies. Cyber security remains the first line of defence and if insurers are going to accept your risk, they want to make sure you adhere to best practices that mitigate your exposure to claims. Premium discounts will be available for companies which are able to demonstrate their risk averse nature. Common controls required by insurers include: backups of critical data, VPN for remote access, multi-factor authentication for cloud based services, and cyber security training.
Claims history
If you have been the subject to a cyber threat that would have been insured, even if you didn’t have a policy in force you need to disclose that information. Unfortunately, you will incur higher premium costs if you have been the subject of cyber insurance claims in the past five years. Insurers will want to understand exactly what occurred, how much the cyber incident cost, and what remedial actions were taken to stop a similar cyber incident occurring again.
How does a cyber policy work?
Each insurer's standard cyber policy will vary, and the terminology will be different, however the broad cyber insurance covers are comparable under the below sections:
- Incident Response - access to specialists to mitigate the damage of a cyber incident
- Cyber Liability Insurance - covers damages and defence costs from third party claims
- Cyber Extortion - covers ransomware demands and expenses to restore systems
- Business Interruption - covers loss of profits as a result of a security and privacy breach
- Notification Expenses - covers costs to notify individuals resulting from a privacy breach
- Media Liability - covers IP infringement, defamation and breach of confidentality
- System Damage - cover for the costs of data and applications to be repaired and restored
- Regulatory Fines - cover for fines and penalties imposed by a government or regulatory body
For more detailed information please read what cyber insurance covers
What additional business insurance is available?
Social engineering fraud
Means the act of influencing a person to divulge sensitive information or to perform a task, which typically results in a voluntary payment to the fraudster.
Cyber-crime
Provides financial protection from a fraudulent taking, or appropriation of money, securities, or property (third-party, employee, or to the deprivation of a client).
Tech Errors and omissions
Otherwise known as professional indemnity cover, provides cover for mistakes, neglect, or unintentional breach of duty when providing a technology or professional service.
Obtain your cyber insurance quote to compare protection from the leading insurers
Talk with a specialist broker to ensure your policies are adequate to meet your business needsMisconceptions
Every business, not just technology companies are exposed to cyber risks and should consider a policy to mitigate their threats. As criminals become more sophisticated and the technology you use becomes more connected, so do the threats of financial harm. We've identifed some objections about the need to arrange coverage and want to challenge some of the assumptions:
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Our network is hosted by a third-party provider - Whether or not you outsource any services to third-party providers, any data breach will be your responsibility and your ability to recoup costs from such third-party may be limited.
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We don’t process or hold sensitive data - Considering the extended scope of GDPR, most business will now hold personal information (i.e. email address) on their customers, note this doesn’t need to be credit/debit card details.
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Our computer system has high security - No system can ever be 100% protected, no matter the levels of security controls embedded. Good cyber risk management promotes risk transfer as a valuable mechanism for an unforeseen events.
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Cyber-attacks only occur at large corporations - Large recognisable brands can make the news, but insurer’s claims experience shows that criminals will not discriminate against small to medium sized businesses, especially with lessor controls.
Why choose 'Get Indemnity'?
Our mission is to provide our clients with the knowledge, expertise, and advocacy to secure the best cover at the lowest cost premium. We work with a wide range of insurers to ensure we can secure the most competitive cover to protect your business.
Ensure your fully protected and compare quotes from the wholesale market by completing our digital onboarding process or give us a call on 0345 625 0711 to discuss your requirements.
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Frequently asked questions
Why cyber insurance is important?
No system can ever be 100% secure, no matter the levels of cyber security controls embedded within the company. Ransomware attacks continue to increase in frequency year on year targeting businesses of all sizes. Unfortunately, if your cyber security defensives are overcome, the cost of a cyber-attack can have dire consequences for any business if they don’t have contingency plans in place.
Why is cyber incident response important?
Many cyber insurance products these days offer access to specialists whose role is to mitigate the cost of a cyber-attack. Triage within the first 12 hours is the most important and having access to experienced experts can make all the difference. Negotiating ransomware demands, recovering your systems and data, forensic, legal and public relations costs can all be covered.
How can a data breach occur?
Data breaches will typically occur because: 1) malicious attack; 2) human failure; and 3) system failure.
How to manage a cyber event?
Obtaining early assistance from specialists to mitigate the damage of a cyber event can be invaluable. Minimising the interruption to the business and starting the triage process early will reduce the impact.
What is Cyber Essentials?
Cyber Essentials is a government-backed scheme launched by the UK government in 2014. It is primarily aimed at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The scheme focuses on basic cyber hygiene measures to help reduce a company's vulnerability. The cover provided is typically deemed insufficient for most businesses and non-profit organisations, given the size of the limits available and scope of the cover.
Related articles and guides
Crime insurance offers financial protection from a criminal or fraudulent taking, obtaining or appropriation of money, securities or property
Effective cybersecurity risk management is no longer optional, but essential for maintaining business continuity