You probably have an insurance that covers up your family’s health, home, and even your vehicle. But what about cybersecurity insurance?
While digital technology evolves, cyberattacks do as well. Criminals are now equipped with advanced gadgets and techy knowledge, capable of causing massive financial, physical, and mental damage.
Cybersecurity insurances are there to protect you from all kinds of risks and dangers that occur online. Data leakage and damage to systems or networks are included here.
They charge a relatively small fee (depending on your IT structure). And if something ever happens, the insurance company would cover most of the expenses caused by the cyber incident.
But what exact threats do cybersecurity insurances cover you from?
What Liabilities Do Cover Cybersecurity Insurances
There’s a vast amount of offers developed, but most of them focus on solving every loss of online resources of benefits that you might think of.
We can even categorize the liabilities covered in 3 groups:
a) Basics
- Network security and privacy violations: All claims made by 3rd-parties as malicious code injection, data blockage, or intrusion into systems.
- Regulatory Procedures: Expenses for legal advisory in case of starting administrative procedures due to a breach of data protection regulations. Sometimes, insurances even cover the resulting sanction.
- Incident Management: cybersecurity insurances will pay for the forensic analysis when security breaches occur by third-party services.
- Third-party services expenses: They will hold liable for identity theft and fraud protection, call center fees, and other hired extras.
B) Complementary
- Own Financial Loss: When they derive from interrupted systems or networks. They will pay for the mitigation and recovery of digital assets. These also include losses from ransom (advisory, bounty, and rescue).
- Civil Responsibility of Digital Media: They cover those claims you could get from exposure to the company’s online content because often conclude on third-party defamation, intellectual property infraction, and privacy infringement.
C) Damages
The mentioned security failures aren’t your only threat. Damages caused by other factors as the following are also covered by cybersecurity insurances:
- Risks caused by human error,
- Technical failures,
- Chain supply failures,
- Theft of negligent third-party intellectual property.
As you might guess, these are capable of causing massive business interruption, therefore financial and reputational loss.
But be aware of this for when you’ll purchase liability: not all of the mentioned are offered as standard. So you must ask for them and negotiate its inclusion if they aren’t in.
Of course, as they’re liabilities in… There are also others out and excluded from the coverage of almost all cybersecurity insurances. To give you an example of some:
- Illicit digital acts caused on purpose.
- Responsibilities highlighted on a contract agreement. Insurances will only hold you accountable for events that happen outside of the negotiated legal framework.
- Reclamations occurring before the contracted date.
- NDA violation (Exposure of commercial secrets).
- Terrorism-based cyberattacks.
Now you know what you can cover from, and you cannot.
Are you more convinced of getting your cybersecurity insurance?
Great. Read this to learn how to use the legal liabilities they offer.
How to Use your Cybersecurity Insurance
Imagine you’re working today, and find out that it’s just not possible to access your servers. You highly suspect that your systems or networks have been compromised.
What can you do now?
Would you call the judicial services of the company? Your IT team? The police?
In case this ever happens to you (because it can), then you need to act in the first key minutes to minimize the damage you’ll be about to receive.
The good news is that hired cybersecurity insurances are prepared for this situation. So, a simple call would activate the defense mechanisms in place. This is what you should get:
- Specialized service of cyberattacks detection/analysis.
- Judicial advisory.
- Smart fraud and identity theft monitoring.
- External communicative management to recover reputation back.
Being aware of what you get in the first minutes of the incident, then you should start by calling or emailing the insurance company as soon as possible.
They will ask for your identity and other crucial information to evaluate the event.
Once the process starts, they’ll classify the criminals and/or the attack according to its nature and capacity. The protocol to get in place will depend entirely on these elements.
But hold up for a second… Aren’t we getting hurried up?
Are Cybersecurity Insurances For You?
You’re right. Cybersecurity insurances focused on holding big-sized companies and even multinationals accountable for possible high-class cyberattacks and secret exposures.
But times have changed.
Now small to mid-sized business owners can also get access to this type of protection due to its increasing frequency. Pymes are the most affected for its lowest level of protection.
Even Freelancers are common victims of hard-to-assume digital loss.
In that case, yes. Cybersecurity insurances are probably for you.
Especially if you or your company runs commercially in these most vulnerable industries due to the amount of data they record:
- Financial and health-based institutions.
- Telecoms and digital service providers
- Electric and fuel-based energy companies (massive damage if processes are interrupted or information gets stolen).
Now that you know that they are compatible with your business… It’s time to learn what to look to get the most from your cybersecurity insurance.
What to Look For When Choosing Cybersecurity Insurances
First-timers can have a hard time trying to understand what they do… It’s harder to pick one that matches what you’re looking for. You often don’t know what you’re getting.
This truer when we talk about a relatively new area: cybersecurity.
So, take the following recommendations for when you choose yours:
- Work with your Broker: They surely know what your company or industry knows, even better than yourself. A brief conversation could get you policies that fit your exact needs. Your broken can even help you get lower monthly fees.
- Consider policies a la carte: While you are capable of choosing cybersecurity coverage according to your industry’s needs, you can also get a fully personalized plan (a la carte). So, you’ll be replacing general protection of situations you consider unworthy and unlikely, for something focused on special events that are most likely happen to you.
- Minimize the volume of held personal identity data: This is taken into account as an essential element to passing the broker’s risk evaluation. It’s simple. If you manage large volumes of confidential data, the chance of data exposure is considerably higher. Meaning, you can a better deal by reducing this and other risks.
- Comply with all data regulations: You can either follow them for fear of being sanctioned or by that motivation of getting an even lower fee as a reward. Complying will prove your company is serious about consumer data and its network systems protection.
Learn more about cybersecurity laws and regulations online, coordinate quarterly revision protocols with your IT team, and follow industry leaders to be aware of new legal changes that might occur, at any time.
That’s where MyITGuy comes in!
Our team of cybersecurity experts is always active to guide you on the right path. The one where you keep your night’s sleep and all of your assets. Do you have a question?
Let’s talk!