By Jamie Wilson, MD & Founder, Cryptoloc Technology Group

It may not have attracted as much attention as the coronavirus, but ransomware has become a pandemic unto itself – and it’s sending the price of cyber insurance skyrocketing. Here’s what you can do to keep your premiums as low as possible.

Cyber insurance is a relatively new addition to the insurance market that helps to protect organisations from the fallout of being hacked and is typically available to cover:

• Costs related to the loss of or damage to data
• Content-related claims related to data
• Costs to prevent future breaches
• Fines and penalties imposed by regulators
• Public relations costs
• Liability for denial of service from or access to electronically provided data
• Costs associated with cyber extortion reimbursement
• Compensation to third parties for failure to protect their data

But at a time when more organisations are clamouring for these sorts of protections, cyber insurance carriers are raising premiums and limiting the coverage they’re willing to offer.

In a recent report entitled Cyber insurance: A hard reset, multinational insurance broker Howden reported that global insurance pricing had increased by an average of 32 per cent from June 2020 to June 2021.

Similarly, insurance broker Marsh’s latest Global Insurance Market Index found that cyber insurance premiums shot up 56 per cent in the US and 35 per cent in the UK from the second quarter of 2020 to the second quarter of 2021.

Marsh reports that Australian businesses, specifically, have been slugged with cyber insurance premium jumps of up to 30 per cent, and those prices are expected to just keep rising.

Why are cyber insurance premiums going up?

Essentially, cyber attacks are becoming too common for the insurance sector, which relies on businesses insuring themselves against scenarios that might not end up happening