…Is usually the response when I try to talk to clients about Cyber. It’s one of those subjects where it comes up as an after thought or at the end of a meeting. The usual response is, “don’t worry we outsource that kind of thing so we are covered” or “we don’t really keep any client records so it’s not really for us”. At that point we might move on to a different subject, however can you still, in this day and age, afford not to take this cover seriously?
Recent figures from the GOV.Uk’s ‘Cyber security breaches survey 2023’ estimate that across all UK businesses there were approximately 2.39 million instances of cyber crime and approximately 49,000 instances of fraud as a result of cybercrime in the last 12 months. Large and worrying statistics but what does a claim actually look like?
Three examples to consider:
A construction company may not carry much data and aren’t reliant on computer systems to trade, however could still be caught up in a socially engineered crime. They may use sub-contractors to undertake work for them and are billed on a monthly basis. Scammers could hack into the systems and watch to see how the company works. They then may intercept any invoices that are sent and amend payment details so the construction company could unwittingly send money to the wrong place.
A small professional services firm may outsource all their IT to a third party. Over a weekend, that third party could be subject to a ransomware attack which effectively leaves the firm unable to access their data. Where do they turn, what do they do next?
A legal firm could suffer a cyber-attack, are then held to ransom and then informed their client’s personal data would be leaked to the dark web unless a payment is made. Do they make the payment, how and what do they tell their customers?
All these could happen to companies and in our experience do happen to companies on a regular basis. Cyber cover could help solve a lot of these problems and more. So next time cyber is mentioned, it might be worth having a further conversation with your broker to see how they can help.
By Peter Ryder ACII – Chartered Insurance Broker & Account Executive