Brokers will play a key role as businesses continue to “underestimate” their cyber risk, an expert has said.
Joshua Kennedy-White, Asia Pacific managing director of
Accenture Security, said that while businesses continue to “underestimate” their cyber risk, the role of the broker will be key as the market for cyber insurance continues to develop.
“Brokers are the ones that can straddle the divide between the risk and the insurance,” Kennedy-White told
Insurance Business.
“It will come down to asymmetry. The better they can understand the risk, the better they can understand the business and what they need to protect, the more able they are to be able to price that insurance and offer something to the client.”
Kennedy-White noted that many businesses still treat cyber risk as something that will not happen to them but said that all businesses need to be aware of the threats they face.
In its latest survey,
Building Confidence: Facing the cybersecurity conundrum, Accenture found that one in three cyber attacks result in a security breach but 75% of senior executives are confident in their ability to protect their business.
Australian businesses, along with US counterparts, spend the least on cyber security as a percentage of their total IT budget, and have the least confidence in their ability to monitor for a breach compared with the global average.
Before businesses look to cyber insurance, or for ways to up their cyber security efforts, Kennedy-White said they first need to identify the digital aspects of their business that need protecting the most, giving brokers a helping hand in educating clients around the coverage.
“Every business is different and they really need to understand what is the thing that they fear the most - what are the things that we need to protect and then you look at the systems,” Kennedy-White continued.
For brokers, the cyber insurance market could represent a growth area but Kennedy-White noted that some will be better equipped to deal with the ever-changing market than others.
“It is going to be interesting because I think we will look at whether my broker is contemporary,” Kennedy-White said.
“Maybe we will get to a stage where we have the native brokers as opposed to the immigrant broker – like we have with digital natives, people who understand that, as opposed to someone who is brought to it late in the game and doesn’t understand it.”
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