Why your business needs cyber insurance
Data is the lifeblood of the modern business – even those not involved in technology or services industries. In fact, information is your most valuable asset.
Realising this fact, UK businesses are getting better at backing their information up – but there’s still a lot more that needs to be done.
Insuring your data
With your security and backup provisions in place, the last step is to protect your business against the wider repercussions of data loss. Which is where cyber risk insurance comes into play.
Cyber risk insurance offers a financial fall-back in the event of your systems failing – or someone breaking in and stealing your data. If you experience a breach or data loss event, you can make a claim against your policy.
Which means you will have some funds available to begin the process of restoring normal business operations, recreating data. Or paying fines for breaches that expose personal data.
Should you insure your data?
Your physical assets – PCs, cars, buildings – are all insured, so why not your data? You can always buy new physical assets (at significant cost), but data is much, much harder to replace.
Losing data is more than “just” a financial inconvenience, however. Losing personal data belonging to customers or your employees is illegal, and could land your management team in serious trouble. Once the new GDPR regulations come into force (May 2018), your business could be facing fines of up to €20,000,000 or 4% of annual worldwide turnover, whichever is greater.
Insurance is a scam – we can manage without it
In an effort to keep operating costs low, business owners are constantly looking for ways to make savings. So if you don’t need extra insurance, why would you pay for it?
Around 60% of smaller businesses experience a cyber breach each year – which means that you have a 3 in 5 chance of being a victim this year. Obviously, this should spur you on to improve your security provisions – but it should also serve to underscore the importance of insuring yourself against such events.
The reality is that in the case of data breaches, the question is not if, but when. Blind hope will not protect your business from losing data.
In the age of data-driven business, cyber risk insurance is equally important as public liability coverage.
Think you’re already covered? Think again
Apparently more than half (52%) of CEOs believe they already have some form of cyber insurance in place. The same government statistics found that in reality, less than 10% are properly covered.
Which means you must confirm your insurance coverage against cyber breaches as soon as possible – or face having to find sufficient funds to pay for reparations and remedial work from your reserves.
The average cost of each breach has been estimated at £3,480 (more for larger firms) - can you really afford to take that kind of hit?
To learn more about cyber risk insurance and what it means for your business, please get in touch.
