Cyber-risks: insufficient insurance capacity

According to London market estimates, a large-scale cyber-attack affecting a major financial payment system could result in losses of 3500 billion USD over 5 years.

Increasing digitization and the frequency of attacks are raising awareness of the seriousness of this risk. As a result, there is currently a strong demand for coverage and capacity for this type of risk.

However, insuring against cyber-attacks remains a perilous task for a market that is still scrambling to get off the ground.

Cyber insurance currently faces a number of insurability challenges such as:

• the accumulation of risks and the systemic nature of cyber losses,
• the complexity of covering and managing this type of risk,
• the dangers associated with economic slowdown and business interruption,
• capacity constraints and insufficient cover,
• the impact on other property-casualty classes of business, notably third-party liability and property damage,
• strict underwriting conditions,
• lack of a quantification model.

In 2022, premium volume reached 13.5 billion USD, compared with 8.6 billion USD a year earlier. Forecasts for 2023 point to a worldwide underwriting volume set at 16 billion USD. Reinsurance accounts for almost 50% of direct cyber premiums. The number of players underwriting these risks continues to grow year on year, rising from 180 insurers/reinsurers at the end of 2021 to over 220 ⁽¹⁾ by 2022.

⁽¹⁾ « Cyber Insurance Market » study, Insuramore.