Organizations grow budgets to meet rising cyber premiums

During the past year, nearly 80% of businesses saw an increase in their cyber insurance costs, with 67% saw an increase of 50%-100%, according to a survey from privilege access management platform provider Delinea. Despite the growing cost, and highlighting the vital nature of cyber insurance today, 81% of organizations increased their budgets to meet the growing cost.

Further, 36% of survey respondents said that cyber insurance is a requirement of the organization’s board of directors or executive management teams.

However, budgetary support for cyber insurance premiums has waned some in the past year. In 2022, only 6% of companies denied budget requests for cyber insurance. This year 19% of organizations denied these requests for larger cyber budgets.

According to Delinea, cyber insurance requirements are also driving heavy investment in cybersecurity tools. In the past year, 96% of companies surveyed purchased a cybersecurity solution before being approved for coverage.

Cybersecurity mechanisms that were important for obtaining coverage included identity and access management platforms (IAM) and privileged access management controls (PAM), according to the survey results. As such, around half of respondents said they bought into an IAM platform, 44% purchased a password vault and 44% acquired a PAM solution.

“If organizations don’t already have these access control solutions, it’s time to implement them before they shop for or try to renew cyber insurance,” Joseph Carson, chief security scientist and advisory chief information security officer at Delinea, said in a release. “These are essential security controls to add to cybersecurity strategies, along with basics like anti-malware software, data encryption, firewall and intrusion detection, patching and vulnerability management.”

The Delinea survey also found that smaller companies had their cyber insurance applications denied more often compared with larger companies. Approximately 28% of smaller companies applied and were denied cyber coverage, compared with 8% of larger companies.

However, bigger organizations needed much more assistance during the application process. Around 63% of large companies had to use an “insurance-provided solution/appliances,” while 60% had to pay for an external risk assessment, according to Delinea.

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