According to a report from a recent Captive.com article, a full 50 percent of US firms do not have cyber insurance, despite the fact that 61 percent of US firms expect the volume of cyber breaches to increase in the next year. Further, more than a quarter of US firms say they are not planning to purchase cyber insurance. These findings come from a new survey from analytics firm FICO, which also reveals that even among those that have insurance only 16 percent said they have cyber insurance that covers all risks. This puts the United States well behind the United Kingdom and Canada in cyber protection, among other countries.

This corresponds to a report released at the 2017 Risk & Insurance Management Society’s (RIMS) Conference earlier this year. According to the 2017 Cyber Risk Transfer Comparison Global Report, written by the Ponemon Institute, most organizations spend four times more on insurance protecting their physical plants, properties, and equipment than they do their information-based assets. The report indicates that most organizations spend much more on fire insurance premiums than on cyber insurance, despite stating in their publicly disclosed documents that a majority of the organization’s value is attributed to intangible assets.

This is where captives make sense: the majority of survey respondents said that cyber insurance was inadequate to meet the needs of their organization, too expensive and has too many exclusions. That’s practically the mantra for captive formations!  Over time, the traditional insurance market will likely meet the need of many insureds with cyber policies, but it’s a little scary how unprotected we currently are – the time is nigh!

Come to the VCIA Conference this year and learn more about Cyber for captive with Cyber Security and Captives: How to Stay One Step Ahead (part 1 & 2). Click here for more information. This is just one of dozens of great captive topics being covered at VCIA August 8–10.  Hope to see you there!

I look forward to hearing from you.

Rich Smith
VCIA President