The cyber insurance market is often spoken about as one of the biggest growth opportunities for the insurance industry, but one global leader has said that the door could be open to disruption in the key emerging market.
Lambros Lambrou, a member of the Global
Aon Risk Solutions operating committee as well as CEO for the business in Australia and a member of the Pacific board of the company, told
Insurance Business that if the industry is not quick to respond to clients’ needs on cyber, disrupters may step in.
“If we find that we are actually not responding to the opportunity or we are providing the solution in an inefficient way, then absolutely this is ripe for disruption and we should not be surprised when it happens,” Lambrou said.
“As an industry we are absolutely positioned in the right way to bring these solutions to our clients but we simply cannot rest on our laurels.
“We need to put the foot to the pedal as it were, and we need to continue to invest in these areas and if we don’t then disruption will happen and we shouldn’t be surprised by that.”
Lambrou said the industry is currently in a good position to meet the needs of clients in the cyber industry as a long history of “really good underwriting and risk management expertise” puts the industry on the front foot when it comes to cyber.
The ever-evolving nature of cyber risk means that the industry must try and keep pace with a changing threat landscape. Lambrou said that while the industry is “doing the best that it can,” more could still be done.
“If you look around the world there has been solid progress, but could it be better? Absolutely. However, it will only come with better insights in terms of clients sharing their issues around cyber, brokers investing, advisers investing, insurance companies investing and creating this cyber eco-system where, as a result of that collective knowledge, we can mature the cyber product or cyber solution quickly so that it actually meets the client need. In so doing, the industry evolves rapidly.”
Lambrou noted that every industry is exposed to cyber risk as insurers look to earn pride of place positions in a market that could come to dominate the insurance landscape in the future.
“A lot of insurers are looking at cyber as an area to get into and I think they are looking at it as an opportunity,” Lambrou continued.
“Some will also be looking at what happens if you don’t have a cyber product. We could actually be exposed as an insurance company because we need to be thinking about the competitive nature of the landscape but also how can we keep pace with our clients’ needs.”
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