Risk professionals' continued to show confidence in standalone cyber insurance policies as the number of practitioners who purchased the coverage increased moderately in 2017, according to the 2017 RIMS cyber survey.
The survey found:
- Organizations with a standalone cyber insurance policy increased three percent (to 83 percent) from 2016.
- Of the organizations without a standalone cyber policy, 84 percent indicated that other insurance policies included cyber liability coverage.
- Seventy-two percent of respondents transferred cyber exposures to a third-party (up four percent from 2016).
- Business interruption – 80 percent – and cyber extortion – 72 percent – topped the list of first-party cyber exposures.
- Only 34 percent of respondents thought that the government should mandate cyber security standards.
“At any given moment, cyber-predators can unleash a new hack to infiltrate an organization's system, steal or lock critical data, and cause significant business interruption damages,” said Nowell Seaman, the president of RIMS. “RIMS cyber survey shows that risk professionals continue to invest in cyber insurance products and must work in tandem with their insurers and IT professionals to help develop innovative and adaptable solutions for the next generation of cyber threats.”
Compared to the modest changes seen in this year's survey, last year's survey showed more drastic changes in the management of cyber exposure than its preceding 2015 survey. Notably, there was a 29 percent increase in the procurement of standalone cyber insurance than recorded in 2015 (51 percent in 2015, 80 percent in 2016). Also, there was a 10 percent increase in the number of organizations that transferred cyber exposure to a third-party from 2015 to 2016 (58 percent to 68 percent).
For the first 60-days, the new RIMS survey is available to RIMS members only in the RIMS risk knowledge library. Thereafter, it is available to all risk professionals at www.RIMS.org/riskknowledge.