Brokers looking to develop their business in the cyber insurance market need to focus on educating themselves and clients as the insurance industry continues grapple with the booming cyber market.
Kevin Kalinich, global cyber risk practice leader for
Aon Risk Solutions told
Insurance Business that brokers looking to develop there cyber offering need to educate clients using facts from the market.
“Cyber exposures and solutions are not one size fits all so it behoves brokers to become educated and educate their clients depending upon specific industries and size and geographies,” Kalinich said.
“If the brokers try and say here is the answer to all of your questions, that won’t work and you will lose credibility.
“I think the role of the broker can be to aggregate as many objective facts and provide intellectual capital to clients to educate them on what the potential losses are that could affect their financial statement.”
Kalinich, who is in Australia as part of the Cyber Risk Symposium’s currently being held across the country by Aon, DLA Piper and Symantec, said that “a credible broker,” would to focus on education rather than trying to convince clients of the benefits of cyber cover.
“I think the more that we can use fact-based intellectual capital, that to me would resonate more with the clients than just trying to convince them of something,” Kalinich continued.
The cyber market has branched out from technology focused companies, Kalinich said, but tech companies still have an important role to play in the market.
“In 2016 every company, in every industry relies on technology and information assets so what we are doing is leveraging off of the core technology companies to provide education and information to the rest of the industries of what the technology and information asset issues are.”
With mandatory breach notification laws on the horizon Kalinich said that this legislative change could have a drastic impact on the uptake of the insurance cover in Australia.
“We know that there have been a lot of incidents in Australia, never disclosed, because they don’t want to lose their brand and reputation,” Kalinich continued.
“We know that there have been other losses from business interruption and again they don’t want to disclose these because of brand and reputation. They are afraid that people won’t use them any more.
“We’ll have the mandatory data breach disclosure law and then we’ll have a major incident. That will happen and it will be bigger than the census bureau. It will be a loss. Then the companies will be forced by management, by the directors and officers, to address that because it can affect their bottom line and the directors are liable if they don’t address it.”
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