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Cyber Insurance Industry Expected To Boom 58

Posted by Soulskill
from the who-doesn't-love-new-forms-of-insurance dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The high profile hacks to Sony's systems this year were quite costly — Sony estimated losses at around $200 million. Their insurance company was quick to point out that they don't own a cyber insurance policy, so the losses won't be mitigated at all. Because of that and all the other notable hacking incidents recently, analysts expect the cyber insurance industry to take off in the coming year. 'Last October, the S.E.C. issued a new guidance requiring that companies disclose "material" cyber attacks and their costs to shareholders. The guidance specifically requires companies to disclose a "description of relevant insurance coverage." That one S.E.C. bullet point could be a boon to the cyber insurance industry. Cyber insurance has been around since the Clinton administration, but most companies tended to "self insure" against cyber attacks.'"
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Cyber Insurance Industry Expected To Boom

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  • by JimCanuck (2474366) on Saturday December 24, 2011 @12:15PM (#38482288)

    More insurance policies ....

  • Not going to happen (Score:4, Interesting)

    by seifried (12921) on Saturday December 24, 2011 @12:20PM (#38482324) Homepage
    The data needed to make actuarial tables isn't good enough (so you can't assess risk rates that well), and the amount of self inflicted harm (e.g. Sony) is staggering. What will happen is insurance companies will attempt to do this, claims will be filed, and denied on various grounds (some legitimate, like you did have a password on the admin account, and some less legitimate) but payout rates will be low to zero. Companies will realize that attempts to financially offset the impact of the risk isn't working (you pay the premiums but never win any claims) and eventually stop buying cyber insurance.
  • by timeOday (582209) on Saturday December 24, 2011 @12:43PM (#38482540)
    I agree with you on the problems, but maybe this budding industry will help standardize practices and metrics and make the IT industry more mature by quantifying risks as dollars so companies can understand them.

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