There is a cost to cyber liability insurance.
But it might be time to think of cyber coverage as not just a line-item expense, but as a cost-savings measure.
Quite simply, cyber attacks can be very expensive to clean up.
In a recent study of 160 cybersecurity incidents from 2012-2015, cyber risk assessment experts NetDiligence found the median insurance claim was for nearly $77,000, with the “typical” claim landing between $30,000 and $263,000 in value.
The NetDiligence 2015 Cyber Claims Study also found the following:
-- The median expense for legal defense was nearly $75,000.
-- The median expense for “Crisis Services,” including ID and credit monitoring, was about $60,000.
-- A median cyber breach resulted in 2,300 lost records.
-- The median cost per record lost in a cyber breach was $13.
The need for cyber insurance
The numbers above tell a story about cyber crime.
But how does it affect your business?
Quite simply, all businesses possess some sort of employee data. And no matter your business, employee data will be attractive to cyber criminals — hackers looking to make a score on the black market.
Still, hacking can be a hard topic for businesses to grasp. It may even seem outlandish, the idea of some shadowy figures hunched over laptops, diabolically plotting to steal your data.
But the numbers suggest hacking is more than just an abstract threat. To wit: criminal activity was responsible for more cyber insurance claims in NetDiligence’s study than any other cause. Nearly a third of the loss claims stemmed from hacking.
However, cyber risks aren’t just confined to hackers trying to snatch your data. Internal threats can’t be discounted, either, as the NetDiligence study showed. About one-third of claims had some sort of “insider involvement” component, according to the survey. And “rogue employees” were responsible for 11 percent of the cyber claims studied.
Cyber insurance, however, can cover losses inflicted by workers gone rogue. Cyber insurance can also cover the costs related to a breach led by outside threats, including legal fees and ID monitoring. In some ways, cyber insurance can be the firewall behind the firewall for your business.
Let Plexus help.
Every business faces cyber risk. You might not see it, but it is there, and it is here to stay. We’ll give you the clear data you need to make the right decisions, including a detailed, company-specific cost estimate of a breach of your firm’s data. Contact a Plexus client service team member at 847-307-6100 for a consultation, or contact us via the Web. Let's have a conversation.
