Silent Cyber in Reinsurance – Challenges and Opportunities

The ‘cyber’ threat is regarded as a growth area in the primary and reinsurance sectors worldwide and for the past five years has been developing more dynamically than any other hazard. This major topic concerns both primary and reinsurance companies in all areas, whether in property, liability, transport or accident insurance. Services (prevention, risk-based pricing models and claims processing, for example) present a global growth market for the reinsurance industry. The complexity of the cyber threat and the evolving nature of the risk involved present a host of challenges for the design of insurance products, for underwriting, for risk management and for cumulative control – for both primary and reinsurance companies. Correct assessment of cyber risk is therefore indispensable, and the right approach must always be developed further. Special attention needs to be given to the variety of forms a cyber event can take. Thus, primary and reinsurance companies can incur not only the costs of data loss, but also the costs of reconstructing IT infrastructure, the costs of network and business interruptions, costs of crisis management, costs of reputational risk, and the costs of third-party liability claims