In Partnership with
Proactivity key in
ever-changing cyber market
As the market stabilizes, now’s the time for brokers to change the conversation and engage new clients
Phil Baker
BOXX Insurance Inc.
Industry experts
Angela Feudo
Trisura Guarantee Insurance Company
Kelly McGuinness
Coalition Inc.
Lindsey Nelson
CFC Underwriting
Phil is an experienced insurance executive with over twenty-five years in the specialty P&C segment. Prior to joining BOXX, Phil headed other insurance organisations, including Creechurch Underwriters, where he was president and CEO of the highly regarded MGA that focused on insuring risks in the emerging technology space. Before joining Creechurch, Phil headed the financial and professional lines business unit for Travelers Canada. Phil has underwritten several specialty covers, including D&O, E&O, fidelity, cyber, and medical malpractice.
President, Canada, BOXX Insurance Inc.
Phil Baker
As the national E&O and cyber-product manager at Trisura Guarantee Insurance Company, Angela Feudo is responsible for the organization’s product development, strategy, and training in Canada. Prior to joining Trisura Guarantee, Angela had worked in underwriting for over 17 years. She has a diverse underwriting background, having started her career in property and casualty, then moving into crisis management and, ultimately, E&O and cyber.
Assistant vice president, professional solutions, Trisura Guarantee Insurance Company
Angela Feudo
With over a decade of experience in the insurance industry, Kelly is a leading expert in the field of cyber and tech E&O insurance. Her breadth of expertise ranges from claims adjudication to underwriting. She is currently the Canadian team lead for underwriting and BD (East) at Coalition Canada, and focuses on large, complex risks in the middle market space. Prior to working at Coalition, she was the lead cyber underwriter at Markel Canada and also held roles at CNA and Axis Insurance. She holds a BA in politics and English and an MA in criminology from University College Cork, Ireland.
Production underwriting and business development lead, Coalition Inc.
Kelly McGuinness
As cyber development leader, Nelson oversees the global business development strategy across CFC’s cyber portfolio, responsible for key account management, distribution and new business growth strategy, and internal development across a team of over 50 underwriters.
Cyber development leader, CFC Underwriting
Lindsey Nelson
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Vault Plus Mortgage and Finance Consultancy
David Merison
“Cyber is not just a pure insurance product. A partnership approach [among carriers, brokers, and insureds] is key”
Kelly McGuinness, Coalition
THE CYBER INSURANCE MARKET is showing signs of stabilization after two years of extreme volatility, characterized by high frequency and severity of claims, soaring rates, reduced insurer appetite, and strict underwriting and risk management requirements.
Contending with an ever-changing cyber-threat landscape, Canadian insurers have made corrective actions to reflect the increased frequency and severity of the risk. Adjustments to pricing and risk appetite – although challenging for insureds and brokers – are starting to have an impact. Rate increases are stabilizing as insurers gain more control over attritional losses and insureds focus on the implementation of cybersecurity controls.
There are many reasons for optimism in the cyber insurance market, according to the panel of cyber insurance experts gathered for the latest edition of IBC’s Executive Insights Series – but significant challenges remain, with the panellists expressing concerns about rising ransomware costs, risk aggregation or systemic events, and the significant cyber insurance coverage gap, among other things.
“I think we really need to de-emphasize the insurance component of the product. The insurance is secondary. What’s key is partnering with a company that can get in front of your exposures”
Phil Baker, BOXX Insurance
“A combination of more adequate pricing and that proactive
risk-management approach has led to a much more positive picture for our broker partners and clients”
Lindsey Nelson, CFC
“Depending on the revenue threshold the client has, an endpoint detection and response [EDR] solution is definitely key. It’s one of the best preventers – with MFA working in tandem – to prevent ransomware attacks,” says Kelly McGuinness, production underwriting and business development lead at Coalition. “The segmentation of back-ups and different network capabilities, IT budget, and other things of that nature are also important.”
McGuinness adds that many carriers today will monitor the dark web to identify critical vulnerabilities, like the Log4j vulnerability discovered in December 2021, and alert clients to existing and
“The cyber insurance market is stabilizing.
We’re seeing fewer drastic changes in terms of rating and limit contractions – but that still depends on the industry or class of business that’s being marketed”
Angela Feudo, Trisura
Untapped opportunities
Despite a lot of progress in the marketplace, there is still a very significant cyber-insurance coverage gap in Canada, particularly among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) – many of whom believe they’re not a target of cybercrime because they’re too small. However, endless claim examples show that size of business does not deter threat actors from knocking on the network doors of small businesses and engaging in a ransomware attack.
“There’s a lot of room to go in terms of cyber uptake,” says Nelson, noting that CFC estimates less than 15 percent of businesses in Canada purchase a standalone cyber policy today. “It is primarily an SME issue, and … I think accessibility for small businesses to be able to afford the coverage has certainly been one piece of it.
Feudo expects to see continued growth in the marketplace from existing and new purchasers of cyber insurance. She says, “I really do hope that we see more stable rating because I think everybody benefits from that as long as we're at the right price and we don’t have these large fluctuations. I think we will also see an increase in limits requested. The larger companies are currently buying pretty large limits, but I think we'll see those medium-sized companies start moving into those larger towers, whether that be from contractual requirements or future Canadian legislative changes within the privacy space.”
“The cyber insurance market is stabilizing. We’re seeing fewer drastic changes in terms of rating and limit contractions – but that still depends on the industry or class of business that’s being marketed,” says Angela Feudo, assistant vice president, professional solutions, Trisura. “We’re seeing a much more proactive approach in brokers getting ahead of renewals and coming to insurers a lot sooner in the process.”
Proactivity and preparation are key for brokers navigating the ever-changing cyber-insurance marketplace. Phil Baker, president of BOXX Insurance Inc. in Canada, says a cyber renewal is a different beast from a property or general liability renewal because brokers generally need more time to engage with clients and underwriters to ensure that all coverage requirements – in particular, cyber-security controls – are in place. The hard work doesn’t stop once the contract is signed. Baker says brokers should work with insurers throughout the cyber insurance policy term to monitor the insureds’ controls and help predict and prevent any potential losses.
“I do strongly believe cyber should be the number-one product that brokers are talking to their clients about – and how often we talk about cyber needs to change. A quote should be presented to every single client, regardless of industry, because everybody with employees and a computer has an exposure. How we talk about the product also needs to change. We need to start looking at it as a services-led solution that works proactively to stop cyberattacks, rather than focusing on responsive wording for when an attack does happen.”
Baker concurs with Nelson on changing the conversation around cyber. He says, “I think we really need to de-emphasize the insurance component of the product. The insurance is secondary. What’s key is partnering with a company that can get in front of your exposures to predict and prevent losses from happening, and we need to educate our brokers and our insureds that risks are coming from new sources. Larger companies are used to buying large towers of cyber insurance, but they’re starting to push that risk down through the supply chain. So the smaller businesses are certainly a target, but [the larger businesses are] also going to have heavier burdens in terms of protecting their businesses from their suppliers.”
Average cost of a data breach
United States
million
USD $9.44
Proactive risk management
There are nice-to-have and need-to-have cyber risk controls that will determine insurability and competitiveness in the marketplace. Underwriters are concentrating on several crucial controls at this time, including multi-factor authentication (MFA) – a defensive authentication method that requires users to provide two or more verification factors to gain access to a resource such as an application, online account, or a VPN – and having secure remote desktop protocol (RDP), which reduces visibility into the corporate network.
potential problems. “The additional services that are being provided by carriers in the current environment are second to none,” McGuinness comments.“Cyber is not just a pure insurance product. A partnership approach [among carriers, brokers, and insureds] is key, and these value-added services are things that brokers should be aware of and clients should certainly avail [themselves] of.”
Lindsey Nelson, cyber development leader at CFC, believes this heightened focus on cybersecurity controls has factored into some of the rate relief and stabilization in the marketplace. She says, “Every cyber insurer is heavily invested in reducing the frequency of cyberattacks, using threat intelligence to their advantage, notifying clients of threats in advance, and preventing claims before they happen. A combination of more adequate pricing and that proactive risk-management approach has led to a much more positive picture for our broker partners and clients.”
Read on
What lies ahead?
Looking ahead and making predictions are challenging in a marketplace where the only constant is change. However, all four panellists agree with Nelson that “it’s a very exciting time to be in cyber insurance” – saying that excitement can relate to the challenge of tackling a new cyber exposure or problem.
Baker eyes growth opportunities in a relatively untapped part of the cyber insurance market – personal risk. He explains, “As we’ve changed to this new way of working [hybrid or remote], the lines are blurred between home and business, so I think there’s going to be an increased demand for personal cyber insurance. We have so many devices in our homes that are now connected to the internet. When you add that all up, it’s billions of devices, so I think there's going to be an increase in demand for personal products to protect our families and our homes.”
Meanwhile, McGuinness thinks the future will put more of an onus on insurance carriers to provide continuous solutions for active threat monitoring. “The archaic method of insuring and underwriting cyber is going to change drastically in the future,” she says. “Cyber is an ever-changing marketplace, and insurance carriers need to adapt alongside their clients to ensure they’re providing the best product possible.”
CFC is a specialist insurance provider, pioneer in emerging risk, and market leader in cyber. Our global insurance platform uses cutting-edge technology and data science to deliver smarter, faster underwriting and protect customers from today’s most critical business risks.
Headquartered in London with offices in New York, Austin, Brussels and Brisbane, CFC has over 500 staff and is trusted by more than 100,000 businesses in 90 countries. Learn more at cfcunderwriting.com.
Find out more
We’re a digital-age insurance provider built to help businesses and families stay ahead of cyber threats as well as respond to them. BOXX offers cyber insurance and services curated for everyday businesses and consumers. Powered by great technology, BOXX is making cyber simpler for customers and partners.
BOXX Insurance brings together new technologies, data science, and specialized underwriting to go beyond protection to predict, prevent, and respond to the risks of today and tomorrow. We go beyond traditional insurance – helping the world be digitally healthy.
Find out more
Trisura Guarantee Insurance Company is a Canadian specialty insurance and surety provider. We create custom insurance solutions for a niche industry of corporate clients, through a select broker network. Founded in 2006 on the premise that the insurance business can be done better, Trisura focuses on exceptional service for all our partners.
Trisura Guarantee Insurance Company is a subsidiary of Trisura Group Ltd., a leading international specialty insurance provider. Trisura Group Ltd. has three principal regulated subsidiaries: Trisura Guarantee Insurance Company, Trisura International Insurance Ltd., and Trisura Insurance Company. Trisura has offices across Canada and the US. Trisura Group Ltd. is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol TSU.
Find out more
Proactivity key in
ever-changing cyber market
As the market stabilizes, now’s the time for brokers to change the conversation and engage new clients
Read on
Lindsey Nelson
CFC Underwriting
Kelly McGuinness
Coalition Inc.
Angela Feudo
Trisura Guarantee Insurance Company
Phil Baker
BOXX Insurance Inc.
Industry experts
THE CYBER INSURANCE MARKET is showing signs of stabilization after two years of extreme volatility, characterized by high frequency and severity of claims, soaring rates, reduced insurer appetite, and strict underwriting and risk management requirements.
Contending with an ever-changing cyber-threat landscape, Canadian insurers have made corrective actions to reflect the increased frequency and severity of the risk. Adjustments to pricing and risk appetite – although challenging for insureds and brokers – are starting to have an impact. Rate increases are stabilizing as insurers gain more control over attritional losses and insureds focus on the implementation of cybersecurity controls.
There are many reasons for optimism in the cyber insurance market, according to the panel of cyber insurance experts gathered for the latest edition of IBC’s Executive Insights Series – but significant challenges remain, with the panellists expressing concerns about rising ransomware costs, risk aggregation or systemic events, and the significant cyber insurance coverage gap, among other things.
Proactive risk management
There are nice-to-have and need-to-have cyber risk controls that will determine insurability and competitiveness in the marketplace. Underwriters are concentrating on several crucial controls at this time, including multi-factor authentication (MFA) – a defensive authentication method that requires users to provide two or more verification factors to gain access to a resource such as an application, online account, or a VPN – and having secure remote desktop protocol (RDP), which reduces visibility into the corporate network.
“The cyber insurance market is stabilizing. We’re seeing fewer drastic changes in terms of rating and limit contractions – but that still depends on the industry or class of business that’s being marketed,” says Angela Feudo, assistant vice president, professional solutions, Trisura. “We’re seeing a much more proactive approach in brokers getting ahead of renewals and coming to insurers a lot sooner in the process.”
Proactivity and preparation are key for brokers navigating the ever-changing cyber-insurance marketplace. Phil Baker, president of BOXX Insurance in Canada, says a cyber renewal is a different beast from a property or general liability renewal because brokers generally need more time to engage with clients and underwriters to ensure that all coverage requirements – in particular, cyber-security controls – are in place. The hard work doesn’t stop once the contract is signed. Baker says brokers should work with insurers throughout the cyber insurance policy term to monitor the insureds’ controls and help predict and prevent any potential losses.
“Depending on the revenue threshold the client has, an endpoint detection and response [EDR] solution is definitely key. It’s one of the best preventers – with MFA working in tandem – to prevent ransomware attacks,” says Kelly McGuinness, production underwriting and business development lead at Coalition. “The segmentation of back-ups and different network capabilities, IT budget, and other things of that nature are also important.”
McGuinness adds that many carriers today will monitor the dark web to identify critical vulnerabilities, like the Log4j vulnerability discovered in December 2021, and alert clients to existing and potential problems. “The additional services that are being provided by carriers in the current environment are second to none,” McGuinness comments.“Cyber is not just a pure insurance product.
A partnership approach [among carriers, brokers, and insureds] is key, and these value-added services are things that brokers should be aware of and clients should certainly avail [themselves] of.”
Lindsey Nelson, cyber development leader at CFC, believes this heightened focus on cybersecurity controls has factored into some of the rate relief and stabilization in the marketplace. She says, “Every cyber insurer is heavily invested in reducing the frequency of cyberattacks, using threat intelligence to their advantage, notifying clients of threats in advance, and preventing claims before they happen. A combination of more adequate pricing and that proactive risk-management approach has led to a much more positive picture for our broker partners and clients.”
Untapped opportunities
Despite a lot of progress in the marketplace, there is still a very significant cyber-insurance coverage gap in Canada, particularly among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) – many of whom believe they’re not a target of cybercrime because they’re too small. However, endless claim examples show that size of business does not deter threat actors from knocking on the network doors of small businesses and engaging in a ransomware attack.
“There’s a lot of room to go in terms of cyber uptake,” says Nelson, noting that CFC estimates less than 15 percent of businesses in Canada purchase a standalone cyber policy today. “It is primarily an SME issue, and … I think accessibility for small businesses to be able to afford the coverage has certainly been one piece of it.
Phil is an experienced insurance executive with over twenty-five years in the specialty P&C segment. Prior to joining BOXX, Phil headed other insurance organisations, including Creechurch Underwriters, where he was president and CEO of the highly regarded MGA that focused on insuring risks in the emerging technology space. Before joining Creechurch, Phil headed the financial and professional lines business unit for Travelers Canada. Phil has underwritten several specialty covers, including D&O, E&O, fidelity, cyber, and medical malpractice.
President, Canada, BOXX Insurance Inc.
Phil Baker
As the national E&O and cyber-product manager at Trisura Guarantee Insurance Company, Angela Feudo is responsible for the organization’s product development, strategy, and training in Canada. Prior to joining Trisura Guarantee, Angela had worked in underwriting for over 17 years. She has a diverse underwriting background, having started her career in property and casualty, then moving into crisis management and, ultimately, E&O and cyber.
Assistant vice president, professional solutions, Trisura Guarantee Insurance Company
Angela Feudo
With over a decade of experience in the insurance industry, Kelly is a leading expert in the field of cyber and tech E&O insurance. Her breadth of expertise ranges from claims adjudication to underwriting. She is currently the Canadian team lead for underwriting and BD (East) at Coalition Canada, and focuses on large, complex risks in the middle market space. Prior to working at Coalition, she was the lead cyber underwriter at Markel Canada and also held roles at CNA and Axis Insurance. She holds a BA in politics and English and an MA in criminology from University College Cork, Ireland.
Production underwriting and business development lead, Coalition Inc.
Kelly McGuinness
As cyber development leader, Nelson oversees the global business development strategy across CFC’s cyber portfolio, responsible for key account management, distribution and new business growth strategy, and internal development across a team of over 50 underwriters.
Cyber development leader, CFC Underwriting
Lindsey Nelson
Proactivity key in ever-changing cyber market
As the market stabilizes, now’s the time for brokers to change the conversation and engage new clients
Read on
Lindsey Nelson
CFC Underwriting
Kelly McGuinness
Coalition Inc.
Angela Feudo
Trisura Guarantee Insurance Company
Phil Baker
BOXX Insurance Inc.
Industry experts
As cyber development leader, Nelson oversees the global business development strategy across CFC’s cyber portfolio, responsible for key account management, distribution and new business growth strategy, and internal development across a team of over 50 underwriters.
Cyber development leader,
CFC Underwriting
Lindsey Nelson
With over a decade of experience in the insurance industry, Kelly is a leading expert in the field of cyber and tech E&O insurance. Her breadth of expertise ranges from claims adjudication to underwriting. She is currently the Canadian team lead for underwriting and BD (East) at Coalition Canada, and focuses on large, complex risks in the middle market space. Prior to working at Coalition, she was the lead cyber underwriter at Markel Canada and also held roles at CNA and Axis Insurance. She holds a BA in politics and English and an MA in criminology from University College Cork, Ireland.
Coalition Inc.
Kelly McGuinness
As the national E&O and cyber-product manager at Trisura Guarantee Insurance Company, Angela Feudo is responsible for the organization’s product development, strategy, and training in Canada. Prior to joining Trisura Guarantee, Angela had worked in underwriting for over 17 years. She has a diverse underwriting background, having started her career in property and casualty, then moving into crisis management and, ultimately, E&O and cyber.
Assistant vice president, professional solutions, Trisura Guarantee Insurance Company
Angela Feudo
Phil is an experienced insurance executive with over twenty-five years in the specialty P&C segment. Prior to joining BOXX, Phil headed other insurance organisations, including Creechurch Underwriters, where he was president and CEO of the highly regarded MGA that focused on insuring risks in the emerging technology space. Before joining Creechurch, Phil headed the financial and professional lines business unit for Travelers Canada. Phil has underwritten several specialty covers, including D&O, E&O, fidelity, cyber, and medical malpractice.
President, Canada, BOXX Insurance Inc.
Phil Baker
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Best Insurance
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life
News
Copyright © 2022 Key Media
People
Terms & conditions
Privacy policy
Conditions of use
About us
Contact us
RSS
Asia
NZ
AU
CA
US
UK
contact us
expert advice
specialty
Best Insurance
Resources
RISK MANAGEMENT
life
News
Copyright © 2022 Key Media
People
Terms & conditions
Privacy policy
Conditions of use
About us
Contact us
RSS
Asia
NZ
AU
CA
US
UK
million
USD $7.46
Middle East
million
USD $5.64
Canada
million
USD $5.05
United Kingdom
million
USD $4.85
Germany
Source: IBM, Cost of a Data Breach Report 2022
Coalition is the leading provider of cyber insurance and security, combining comprehensive insurance and proactive cybersecurity tools to help businesses manage and mitigate cyber risk. Backed by leading global insurers Arch Insurance North America, Allianz, Ascot Group, Lloyd’s of London, Swiss Re Corporate Solutions, and Vantage, Coalition offers its Active Insurance products in the US and Canada and its security products to organizations globally. Coalition’s Active Risk Platform provides automated security alerts, threat intelligence, expert guidance, and cybersecurity tools to help businesses remain resilient in the face of cyberattacks. Headquartered in San Francisco, Coalition is a distributed company with a global workforce that collaborates both digitally and in office hubs across the globe.
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ThoughtLab 2022 Cybersecurity Solutions for a Riskier World
Source: ThoughtLab 2022 Cybersecurity Solutions for a Riskier World
*The study analyzed the cybersecurity strategies and results of 1,200 large organizations across
14 different sectors and 16 countries, representing $125.2 billion of annual cybersecurity spending.
Cybersecurity budgets as a percentage of firms’ total revenue jumped 51%, from 0.53% to 0.80%
From 2020 to 2021, cybersecurity became a strategic business imperative
The role of the chief information security officer (CISO) expanded, with many taking on responsibility for data security (49%), customer and insider fraud (44%),
supply-chain management (34%), enterprise and geopolitical risk management (30%), and digital transformation and business strategy (29%).
The number of material breaches respondents suffered rose 20.5% from 2020 to 2021