Does Your Company Have Cyber Insurance?

Businesses face liability risks on multiple fronts these days. There is the danger of someone being hurt by your product, injured on your property or suffering damages because of an error or omission in a service you are providing. On top of all this, the risks of being attacked online are growing each year.

Most Americans are familiar with the attack Target suffered in 2013 right around Christmas time. Hackers broke into their database and stole the personal information of upwards of 100 million customers. This attack not only impacted holiday sales in the short term, it may also cost them billions of dollars in the long term to settle class action lawsuits.

Your business may not be as high profile or as sophisticated as Target, but if you conduct any kind of business online, you are potentially at risk of having your bottom line negatively impacted by an electronic attack and should consider cyber insurance.

Here are just a few ways online hackers can mess up your business:

Stolen Credit Card Numbers: If you sell goods or services online, it is very possible that you maintain a database with your customers’ credit card numbers. Often, customers have the option to have their information stored in your database to make it easier to make repeat purchases. You might maintain the database in house or farm it out to a third party provider. In either case, your company is ultimately responsible if hackers break in and steal this information.

Stolen Personal Information: Maybe you use a payment system (such as PayPal) where you do not have to collect your customer’s credit card information. However, this does not mean your customer’s identity is not at risk. Even without bankcard information, you may still maintain a database with personal information such as a name, address, phone number, etc. Hackers trying to steal a person’s identity can also use this information.

Website Outages: Even if you do not have an online database of personal and/or bank card information, cyber criminals can still create havoc in your business by taking down your website. Think about how important your website is to your overall business. If losing your website for even a few days would have a large impact on your profits, then cyber insurance is something you should definitely consider.

Cyber insurance is unique from most other insurance products because it is still in its infancy. The Internet has only been widely available to the public for a couple decades, and cyber criminals are becoming more sophisticated with each passing year. This makes it very difficult for the actuaries to assess risk and price the insurance accordingly. For this reason, rates for cyber coverage can vary widely from one company to another.

To find the best cyber insurance to fit your needs at the best price, you will need to shop around. The easiest way to find the coverage you are looking for is to work with an independent insurance agent with access to multiple carriers offering a wide range of products. This will put you on the fast track to finding the cyber coverage that is right for you.