Insurance providers are currently facing an influx of claims for online breaches, according to figures from CFC Underwriting. The firm claims that it handled more than 400 claims regarding cyber breach in 2016. That’s more than one claim every day!

The main types of cyber-attack being reported include privacy breaches, the theft of cash and stolen data. Claims for cyber breaches were up by 78% on 2015, with 90% of the claims coming from businesses with less than &50m in revenue. CFC also reported that the majority of their claims came from UK businesses due to their poor level of cyber security when compared to the UK.

Whilst traditional attacks like ransomware and malware were all part of the cause, privacy breaches came out on top as the most common cause for a claim. It is believed that this style of attack is on the rise thanks to high profile attacks in the news.

Privacy Breach	31%
Financial Loss	22%
Ransomware	16%
Malware/Viruses	7%
Website Attacks	5%
Unauthorised Access	5%
Business Interruptions	4%
Other	10%

Source: CFC Underwriting

Graeme Newman head of innovation at the underwriter has said that cyber-insurance is a vital addition to all businesses.

"It's now become more of an incident response service that pays all the costs associated with that," he said. "You ring up the insurer and they get people in to help."

Many insurance firms now have security, data forensics, incident response and PR firms on call to help respond when a claim is filed, he said.
More often than not however, there is very little that can be done to recover finances and repair damage done by the attack. Whilst policies do tend to be pricey, they’re well worth the cost should your business be subjected to an attack.