What Cyber Insurance is and what it is not?

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When searching for a simple cyber liability policy for your business, it’s amazing how quickly you can be up to your ears in terms you’ve never had to think about and questions you’ve never had to answer. Before we say forget the whole thing, let’s first make sure we at least know what cyber insurance is and what it isn’t. 

What Cyber Insurance Is:

• A Last Line Of Defense: If you ever experience a cyber attack (hopefully never),  your cyber insurance will typically help you with critical things you will need to assess and repair the damage such as:

• 1st party expenses: Legal expenses related to attack, breach notification expenses, Breach Forensics (who broke in and how), payment and negotiation costs for a ransomware attack
• 3rd party expenses
• Loss of Income
• Data restoration
• Network security: Virus infections, malware infections 
• Coverage if your data center floods or catches fire

What Cyber Insurance Is NOT:

• A time machine: cyber insurance cannot cover your future profits you will lose as a result of a data breach
• A magic lamp: you will not be covered if your company’s valuation suffers due to a cyber attack
• Omnipresent: you will not be covered if your company loses value due to loss of your intellectual property 

While these are non-exhaustive lists, it’s a decent start to help you make an informed decision on what policy to get for your business.

Considerations when shopping for cyber policies

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Now that we have a general understanding of what cyber insurance is about, these are the main things you want to consider when choosing the right policy for you:

• What coverages are included: You should at least be covered for what we listed above
• Be mindful of policy exclusions. Because cyber insurance is new, all contracts are not yet standardized. Make sure you have a grasp on what specifically is not covered.

Make sure you buy enough insurance based on the size and revenue of your business. You know your business’ numbers best. Think of the maximum amount of money you would need in the worst case scenario. Many successful businesses start off with at least $1,000,000 of coverage.

How to actually get cyber insurance

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Now, let’s talk about the ‘how’ of getting cyber insurance. There are really only a handful of ways to solve this problem. Here are your options:

• You can google and guess. Many times that’s people’s best attempt at making an informed decision. You read all the material and pray that you picked the right company. You may get lucky, but you may also find out when it’s too late that you made the wrong decision. I.e. when you have an actual claim and can’t get anyone on the phone.
• You can call your insurance broker where you bought your business owner’s, homeowner’s, or renter’s insurance and tell them you  would like to purchase cyber insurance. The only drawback to this method is that your insurance broker may not offer cyber liability insurance
• You can try your luck by calling your current insurer if you have a business owner’s policy and ask them to add cyber coverage to your policy. But the issue you face is choosing from a complicated set of options and struggling to answer questions that you feel like you need a computer science degree to answer

But there is a better way. You can use Telivy! Telivy is a digital insurance platform where you can get cyber insurance coverage in a matter of minutes. We are backed by over 30 years of insurance industry experience and  have partnered with a number of top tier cyber insurance companies across the country to provide you the best options with near instant quotes. You’ll have the benefit of multiple insurance carriers competing for your business on our marketplace. Once you find a policy that you like, you can sign up for it with just a few clicks