Controls help cyber renewals swing to decreases
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NEW YORK — Cyber insurance premium renewals have swung from double-digit rate increases just a few years ago to single-digit rate decreases in the fourth quarter of 2023 as policyholders improved their cyber controls at the urging of insurers.
Meanwhile, growth in the market is spreading to the small- and medium-sized enterprise space, where business is expected to migrate to online platforms, according to a panel discussion at the Professional Liability Underwriting Society’s Cyber Symposium Tuesday in New York.
DJ Ruhlman, New York-based senior vice president at RT Specialty, a unit of Ryan Specialty Holdings Inc., called the security measures that insurers “pushed” on clients, such as multifactor authentication, “a beautiful thing.”
“We pushed along that improvement with our clients,” Mr. Ruhlman said, adding such controls help mitigate the severity of cyber incidents even as frequency rises, he said.
Panelists said growth in the market had spread beyond large, complex accounts into the small- and medium-sized enterprise space.
There is “tremendous growth in SME and middle market,” said Joe DePaul, New York-based chief revenue officer and chief operations officer for IronGate Cybersecurity LLC, who moderated the session.
Cyber coverage for small- and medium-sized enterprises is more transactional than with larger accounts, and thus is ideal for online direct distribution, said Mr. Ruhlman. “That book is moving to a digital platform. There's going to be less brokering involved,” he said.
“A lot of that business has already gone to some level automation,” said Tim Francis, West Simsbury, Connecticut-based vice president and enterprise cyber lead at Travelers Insurance Cos. Inc., adding the move has been enabled by third-party data sources.
Petra Strojilova, Philadelphia-based deputy head of Willis Towers Watson PLC’s North American FINEX cyber/E&O practice, said many small- and medium-sized enterprises are first-time buyers of cyber coverage and will benefit from the associated services provided, particularly pre-incident training.
