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While the wide scale adoption of digital tools and services has helped businesses of all size up their value proposition, it has also increased their risk. Cyber criminals are using increasingly sophisticated methods to hack systems and steal data, and more companies than ever before are being targeted. As risks evolve, the insurance industry is being forced to get innovative.
“The industry is being asked to provide risk management solutions in a world that has rapidly changed both digitally and in every other aspect,” says Jeremy Barnett, senior vice president of marketing at NAS Insurance Services. “Suddenly, insurance is relevant to all types of innovative companies, which has forced insurance to become more innovative, too. With the growing concern around cyber security, insurance has had to evolve rapidly and become very tech savvy quickly, which brings new talent to the industry and new opportunities for the business, too.”
The development of innovative cyber insurance products and risk management tools has shown just how forward-thinking the industry can be. Demand is growing, and surplus lines firms have stepped up to show the value they can provide.
“The increased demand has allowed us as a company to rapidly expand, which has been really exciting,” says Barnett. “It has fueled a lot of new opportunities for our company as far as expanding the size of our operations here in Los Angeles and opening offices in New York, Atlanta and Chicago in order to get closer to our customers.”
Being a specialist in cyber has also enabled NAS to expand the nature of its reinsurance offerings and facilitated partnerships with insurance companies who are eager to utilize cyber expertise and provide a solution to their customers. In many cases, these traditional insurers don’t have the adequate skills, contacts or capacity in-house to fix cyber problems and handle claims.
Enabling insurance companies to offer cyber coverage as part of homeowners’ policies is one such example of surplus lines firms’ increasingly integral role. NAS has received numerous requests from homeowners’ insurance companies looking for ways to protect their policyholders from emerging cyber risks in the home.
“With the growth in the ‘Internet of Things’ in people’s homes, whether that’s a Nest thermostat, Ring doorbell or Amazon’s Alexa, there are all sorts of connected devices that can now be targeted,” Barnett says. “Insurance companies want to make sure their clients’ homes and systems are protected, so having some type of cyber homeowners’ policy makes sense.”
