Hong Kong-based Jing An Special Risks (JASR) has received a licence to offer cyber and terrorism insurance in the Philippines.
The Southeast Asian country’s Insurance Commission has allowed JASR to operate in its jurisdiction and offer terrorism and cyber insurance to corporate clients, alongside its partner firm Blackpanda, which will provide crisis management and security consulting services.
“Our products intend to cover businesses against the following threats: war and terror, cyber, kidnap and ransom, marine piracy, and crisis response,” Gene Yu, co-founder and chairman of JASR, was quoted as saying by BusinessWorld.
According to JASR, it will provide corporations with a comprehensive security assessment to determine physical, cyber and organizational risk exposures and draft insurance policies covering these risks. It will give special focus to cyber risks, amid increasing incidents of cyberattacks over the past few years.
The Insurance Commission earlier pointed out the need for cyber and terrorism cover in the market, which very few companies are addressing. Few insurers are covering technological risks at present, despite several major international incidents, such as the WannaCry malware attack in 2017.
Meanwhile, unrest in the southern regions of the country has created a need for terror insurance. In 2017, extremist rebels captured the city of Marawi, which led to a five-month siege that destroyed large areas of the city and inflicted huge human and economic losses.
