Cyber Insurance

With an increasing number of cyber criminals targeting businesses, a data breach could have disastrous consequences, including: taking down your website and holding your business to ransom, your critical data being wiped or your customer and/or employee data being stolen.

As an online insurance specialist, we understand the threats that many businesses face.

Our expert cyber insurance has been created to protect your business in the event of a cyber attack by providing access to our cyber response helpline, as well as covering you for:

• The costs of restoring data and equipment
• Informing your clients of a data breach
• Meeting ransom demands
• Loss of your net profit
• Your legal defence costs and damages that you are legally liable to pay to other parties in the event of a cyber attack.

As a business you should consider purchasing our cyber and data risks insurance to protect your business against data breaches, the costs of restoring your own data and equipment and compensation payable to your clients.

The policy starts from £30.00 per annum depending on your level of risk, which we think represents good value for money considering the level of cover and peace of mind that you get from the policy.

Cyber insurance is comprehensive in its cover and protects against a range of cyber risks, including:

• A spreadsheet containing of all your clients’ personal information (including payment details) is stolen by a hacker. You are covered for the costs associated with informing your customers, your legal defence costs, and any damages you are legally required to pay to other parties.
• In a targeted attack, a hacker threatens to encrypt the hard drive of the laptop you use for your business unless you pay them a ransom. You will be covered for the cost of meeting the ransom demand.
• A targeted denial-of-service attack causes an outage on your website. You are covered for the cost of restoring or reinstating the data to get your website back online, as well as loss of net profit.

Many clients and industry bodies will require you to carry a minimum level of insurance cover before you undertake a contract, so it’s worth checking this before you arrange cover.

If you are unsure of how much cover you will need, or it’s the first time you have arranged cover, give some thought to a worst-case scenario and the likely costs involved in putting things right again. We offer a range of limits on insurance, so you’re sure to find the right cover for your business.

Cyber insurance will provide cover for the following:

• Provision of IT security services (cyber response service) for a 90 day period from the date of discovering a breach
• Negligent transmission of a computer virus
• Loss of net profit for a 30 day period following a ‘cyber attack’ on your business
• Court attendance expenses
• Cyber response
• Legal defence costs in relation to investigations or proceedings brought by the UK Information Commissioner’s Office and (where legally permissible) the payment of any PCI penalty, fine or award imposed due to a breach of PCI data security standards.

Up-to-date anti-virus software will help to a certain degree, but it is not infallible. Also, anti-virus software will not protect you against the cost of correcting things in the aftermath of a cyber attack.

The physical costs involved with informing clients about a data breach, restoring data following a targeted denial-of-service attack or paying ransom demands can be high. Cyber insurance provides cover against these scenarios, giving you the peace of mind that if your business falls victim to a targeted cyber attack, you will be covered.

Cyber insurance will not cover the following:

• Prior claims and circumstances known at inception
• Electromagnetic or electrical disturbances
• Infrastructure failures including, but not limited to, interruption to electricity, telecommunication or internet services.

Professional indemnity insurance (PI) will provide cover for business professionals who provide business services, advice or designs to clients and will cover against claims of negligent work.

Public liability insurance (PL) is designed to protect your business against third party claims for injuries or property damage.

Employers liability insurance (EL) will cover the cost of defending or settling a claim against you from an employee who has suffered injury or disease as a result of the work they do for you.

It is important to be aware that as a self-employed business owner, a claim can be made against you personally with unlimited personal liability, therefore Directors and Officers insurance is a valuable insurance policy which will cover you in this instance, which is provided as part of our Business Combined Liabilities insurance product.

Legal Expenses insurance will also provide cover for costs incurred from a legal occurrence or claim that your indemnity and liability insurance does not cover, including the costs incurred from an IR35 tax investigation.

Personal accident insurance can provide cover for your loss of earnings while you are unable to work due to a work-related accident or illness caused by your work.

Commercial crime insurance can be beneficial to anyone who ones or runs a business, no matter how large that business is. Theft and other crime can have catastrophic consequences for a business and potentially to those who are connected to that business, such as suppliers and employees.