CFC’s USA chief executive Shannon Groeber has left the company in a move that brings her near five-year stint with the London-based MGA to an end, Cyber Risk Insurer can reveal.
Resilience has named George Kotsiopoulos president of insurance as part of a leadership realignment that gives chief revenue officer Matthew Polly oversight of underwriting and sales, Cyber Risk Insurer can reveal.
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Welcome to this month's edition of Cyber Risk Insurer, your monthly digest covering supply dynamics, pricing and loss trends, emerging risk threats, market penetration, potential public-private initiatives for cyber cat and a host of other areas.
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Coalition’s Shawn Ram has said that being cash flow positive since July 2022 means the insurtech feels no pressure to tee up its next liquidity event, with the $5bn valuation it achieved coming after funding conditions had already “tanked” and amid higher scrutiny.
Cloud providers like Google are exposed to so many types of security threats that they are capable of staving off more cyber attacks than many on-premise systems, according to Monica Shokrai, head of business risk and insurance at Google Cloud.
Ahead of today’s hotly anticipated launch of Cyber Risk Insurer, Janet Babin of The Insurer TV caught up with the editor of the new title and longstanding journalist at The Insurer, Michael Loney, on what to expect and why it’s never been more important to have a dedicated news source covering the rapidly growing cyber insurance market.
Cowbell’s chief claims officer said that threat actors are becoming more sophisticated in their attacks, now targeting the “quality” of data rather than just volume, and that social engineering threats have evolved beyond just business email compromise.
CyberCube’s CEO Pascal Millaire said that his firm’s accurate predictions of industry loss ratios in recent years have been “proof points” in the maturity and validity of cyber modelling and said cyber models have gone from being “interesting” to being “useful”.
Cyber incident response firm MOXFIVE’s CEO said the resurgence of threat activity has created whiplash within the incident response community, and also discussed the maturation of the industry and the importance of providing clients with a feeling of “control” after a breach.
The president of SME-focused cyber insurtech Elpha Secure said the spike in cyber ILS transactions last year reflected demand for more capacity in the cyber segment, and also laid his firm’s focus on improving insureds’ cyber hygiene.
Johnson Kendall & Johnson’s cyber practice leader has said insureds need a greater awareness of the “duty of care” obligations associated with business email compromise breach events, warning this could lead to claims being challenged down the road.
While most traditional insurance lines typically see relatively limited interaction between insurers and policyholders, the emerging cyber market redefines the relationship between the two parties.
Ransomware “really had a resurgence” in 2023 over the prior year, according to Lauren Winchester, SVP, Risk Advisory at Corvus, who told
Small to medium-sized businesses remain “a target-rich environment” for threat actors, according to At-Bay’s head of digital forensic and incident response (DFIR) Larry Crocker, who also touted the importance of managed detection and response (MDR) services.
A key metric for insurers to consider when using AI is the impact it has on the business from a risk perspective, according to Arch Insurance Group’s vice president – cyber risk product leader Shiraz Saeed.
Corvus’ chief information security officer Jason Rebholz has warned that premiums in the cyber market are failing to keep pace with the current threat landscape.
Beazley is pushing harder for rate increases in cyber than some of its competitors as the carrier looks to ensure the risks covered are properly priced in response to the continued uptick in ransomware attacks, CEO Adrian Cox has said.
The organisers behind NetDiligence have wanted to create a specific programme for the Latin American market for some time, and seized the opportunity at the recent Cyber Risk Summit, which took place last week in Miami.
As the cyber insurance market continues its growth trajectory, one of the major uncertainties is around third-party losses and potential tail risk.
Surefire Cyber’s CEO said that the wave of threat activity in recent years has provided “a helpful indicator” of how the industry might respond to a catastrophic cyber event, which he said remains a “difficult problem” with more answers needed.
K2 Cyber’s Meghan Hannes said that the newly-launched venture plans to combine the power of incumbency brought about by K2’s existing industry relationships and product set with the opportunity to take a “blank slate” approach to cyber.
Tokio Marine HCC’s Jacob Ingerslev said that the cyber market is going through a natural swing between hard and soft market conditions and called the lull in threat activity in 2022 an “anomaly”, predicting that conditions will become firmer.
An erosion of ethics and increased carelessness among threat actors are making breach response both harder and easier, according to the co-founders of cyber incident response firm Fenix24, as they highlighted the life and death stakes of breach incidents.
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Analysis & Comment
The cyber market is nearing the end of the year in decent shape, with loss ratios for 2024 likely to be attractive once again.
Cyber Risk Insurer revealed at the start of October that Euclid had hired Munich Re’s US cyber practice leader Annamaria Landaverde to launch a new cyber MGU.
Cyber market observers believe that the CrowdStrike outage could lead carriers to “recalibrate their pricing”, with some even believing the incident could present a “Goldilocks scenario” where pricing and demand rise without large losses.
The CrowdStrike outage has dominated the cyber insurance market’s attention since around 8.5 million PCs went offline due to a faulty update.
Insured losses from the CrowdStrike outage could top $1bn but carriers appear confident they will be manageable.
Cyber insurance market players have been reacting to the CrowdStrike outage, assessing the potential losses from the incident and warning about threat actors trying to take advantage through social engineering attacks.
Travelers and AIG saw the most significant share price falls on Friday in the wake of the major Microsoft outage, which impacted an estimated 8.5 million Windows devices.
Despite being a top target for breaches, healthcare companies are overconfident in their cybersecurity capabilities, with shortcomings highlighted in different ways by Meta Pixel exposures and the Change Healthcare attack.
AI could impact multiple insurance policies, while for cyber risks it will serve as an amplifier of exposures.
In the past year, the calls from the (re)insurance industry for government backstops have grown louder.
Ajit Jain attracted attention in early May when he commented on the cyber market at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual general meeting.
The Change Healthcare fallout has continued with reports of a second ransom demand, while market observers have suggested the cyber attack shows the increased exposure to “mini-aggregated events” and may help exert upwards pressure on pricing.
Following the emergence early last year of a number of new capital markets innovations, along with a quartet of 144A cyber catastrophe bonds in the fourth quarter, there has been much excited talk about the potential for insurance-linked securities to transform the market.
Cyber could change the insurance market profoundly. But first it needs to overcome its own growth constraints.
In assessing the role that insurance plays – and could play – in mitigating global risks, few metrics hold as much promise as the protection gap. Unfortunately, discussion of the topic has been dogged by competing definitions and widely varying estimates of the gap’s size and importance.
The Change Healthcare cyber attack has highlighted the potential for systemic loss, with some carriers likely to reassess their appetite for healthcare risks.
Dialogue is increasingly focusing on how the market will be impacted by AI.
Beazley is expecting strong cyber exposure growth in Europe during 2024 as it capitalises on a rapidly expanding market.
Cyber reinsurance buyers grew more confident in reducing quota share cessions at 1.1, according to brokers, while a flurry of ILS deals has raised hopes about capital markets’ capacity for catastrophe events.
The consensus in the cyber market seems to be that pricing will soon trend back upwards in response to ransomware activity increasing, despite new entrants fighting for market share and established players ramping up their appetite.
Viewpoint
People Moves
CFC’s USA chief executive Shannon Groeber has left the company in a move that brings her near five-year stint with the London-based MGA to an end, Cyber Risk Insurer can reveal.
San Francisco-based insurtech Coalition has appointed former Falcon Risk Services executive David Lynders as its new head of insurance, succeeding Shawn Ram, who is transitioning to the role of chief revenue officer.
Resilience has named George Kotsiopoulos president of insurance as part of a leadership realignment that gives chief revenue officer Matthew Polly oversight of underwriting and sales, Cyber Risk Insurer can reveal.
Specialty (re)insurer Canopius Group has promoted executive vice president of cyber and technology Laura Burke to US head of cyber and technology.
Vantage Risk has hired Vernon Suckerman as deputy head of cyber and professions E&O on the cyber and professions team.
Axa XL has hired Robert Malone from Zurich North America as head of large accounts and portfolio management of its cyber insurance team in the Americas.
Old Republic International has confirmed The Insurer’s reporting that it is forming a new underwriting subsidiary to provide cyber and technology errors and omission insurance products, its seventh new specialty company launch in the last nine years.
Former Guy Carpenter executive Siobhan O’Brien has joined MSIG USA as head of its cyber centre of excellence.
Travelers has appointed Lauren Winchester – who joined the carrier at the start of 2024 as part of the Corvus acquisition – as head of cyber risk services.
Old Republic International is set to continue its push into non-admitted specialty markets after hiring former Resilience and Beazley underwriting executives Charles “CJ” Pruzinsky and Kevin McGowan to work on its entry into cyber insurance, Cyber Risk Insurer can reveal.
Beazley has announced the promotion of Alessandro Lezzi as group head of cyber risks.
MSIG Asia has named cyber underwriter Alexander Liu as vice president, strengthening the insurer’s cyber and financial lines offering in Asia.
Specialist insurer CFC has continued the expansion of its dedicated cyber team in Australia with the appointment of Michael Lewis as cyber development manager.
Wholesale broker ARC Excess & Surplus has hired Shiraz Saeed as senior vice president, product leader - cyber and technology risk.
San Diego-based endpoint detection and response company Cybereason has bolstered its incident response team with four hires – Michael Quinn, Roy Cazares, Denman Powers and Michael Flicek – all joining from Kroll.
Nationwide has named James Walsh head of E-Risk Services, its wholesale distribution subsidiary for private company specialty lines underwriting.
Former Coalition executive Madison Mooney has joined Tokio Marine HCC – cyber & professional lines group (CPLG) as director of business development.
Beazley Security has appointed two vice presidents to support its growth and geographic expansion; Stephanie Webb will oversee sales in the UK and Europe, while Jason Deering will focus on expanding client engagements across the Americas.
Aon has appointed former Cyber Re Limited and Platform Labs CEO Robert O’Connell as global cyber strategy and growth leader for its reinsurance solutions business.
San Diego-based endpoint detection and response company Cybereason has appointed former Kroll executive Leonardo Saraceni as head of marketing for its consulting arm.
