Why does your firm need Cyber insurance?

Published: Wednesday, 16 June 2021

You're probably thinking "doesn’t our existing PI insurance cover us?"

Cyber attacks can be expensive and your PI policy doesn’t cover everything

Professional Indemnity polices often include some cyber cover but they won’t reimburse data loss costs such as fixing your systems, business interruption, reputation management or loss of your own funds. We recently heard of a claim where an innocent mistake, opening what appeared to be a genuine email, led to a cyber attack and £60k in rectification costs. The cyber policy premium was under £2k.

You need access to experts quickly

Good quality Cyber insurance policies provide an Incident Response Service to deal with the problem. The service will typically include the full spectrum of experts (cyber breaches, forensics, PR, claims management) needed to handle a breach with the response coordinated via a 24/7 helpline. Under GDPR, with mandatory notification of certain breaches within 72 hours, you don’t have long to engage experts to assess the scope of the breach and engaging them at short notice costs considerably more.

Sounds simple, can I buy a policy online?

We would always recommend buying your cyber cover and PI cover from the same broker to avoid paying for overlapping cover or worse, having gaps in your cover. In the event of a claim, the PI and cyber insurers will need to agree a claim strategy for third party claims arising from data losses. A single broker can simplify liaison between all involved parties.

How much is a typical policy?

Some policies cover you for a maximum ‘aggregate’ of claims up to your limit of indemnity in the policy year, others will cover you to your limit for ‘each and every claim’. Prices for micro firms with <£100k turnover start from £224 (including IPT) for £100k cover. Firms with turnover £750k-£1m can buy £1m aggregate cover from £2,240 (including IPT).

Gary Horswell
Managing Director, Ntegrity

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