An insurtech firm, which has been piloting policies in New Zealand for several years, is ready to stake its claim in the cyber and data insurance market.
Cyber Indemnity Solutions (CIS) announced a new cyber insurance product last week backed by Lloyd’s in the country, having spent three years in a beta testing phase.
The firm has since launched in Australia, with further expansion expected, and Greg Hodgkiss, CIS CEO, said that it was the size and sophistication of New Zealand that originally attracted the firm, along with its technical proficiency.
“It was really down to finding a small economy that functioned from an insurance perspective in exactly the same way as larger, Western economies do but where it could be managed and tested in a micro space,” Hodgkiss told Insurance Business.
“New Zealand has a very hidden and quite unknown expertise in programming so that is why we went there.”
The firm’s digital asset protection (DAP) insurance allows clients to set the value of the data they require insurance for rather than an insurer setting the limit. The product, which has been developed by CIS and is underwritten in New Zealand by
Chubb, offers a different approach to cyber and data protection.
“It doesn’t operate or function like any other policy, generally speaking, in the general insurance field. It is written like a life policy, so it is a one month legal, automatically renewing policy which allows us to adjust the policy and the requirements around customer needs on a continual basis without changing the policy so there is no annual renewal to it,” Hodgkiss continued.
The policy also provides coverage for whole loss of data, rather than the partial cover offered in most cyber and property insurance policies. The policy is available to brokers as CIS is looking to partner with insurers and broker networks to help expand coverage.
The innovative firm now believes that New Zealand is on the cusp of robust cyber growth, following in the footsteps of the US and Australian markets.
“We are noticing today in New Zealand the same frenetic activity to catch-up that we noticed in Australia 12 to 14 months ago,” Hodgkiss noted.
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