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Insurance companies are getting more anxious about cybersecurity, according to a recent study published by the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation with the support of professional services firm PwC.
The biennial survey, which polled 836 insurance practitioners and observers in 52 countries, saw cybersecurity ranked among the top three risks the global industry faces for the first time.
Insurance Banana Skins 2017 saw cyber risk climb up to second, only behind change management, cyberscoop reported.
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Also making it in the top 10 list of global risks were: technology, interest rates, investment performance, regulation, macro-economy, competition, human talent, and guaranteed products.
“The three highest risks form a cluster around the theme of technological change and industry response,” the survey report said.
“The top position occupied by change management reflects concern, even doubt, about the industry’s ability to address the formidable agenda of digitization, new competition, consolidation and cost reduction which confronts it.”
Australia, as well as the US, Britain, and Denmark, rated cyber risk number one. Cyber risk also claimed the top spot among industry risks within the reinsurance sector, the report said.
Driving this increasing cyber anxiety is both concerns about insurers’ own digital security and fears about the growing costs of cyber claims.
“Cyber risk… has also risen sharply on concern about both crime and underwriting risk,” the survey read.
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