New research by PwC predicts that the global cyber-insurance market could expand to US$ 7.5bn (£4.8bn) in annual premiums by 2020. The report, “Insurance 2020 & beyond: Reaping the dividends of cyber-resilience”, suggests that insurers will discover more client concerns with the value of their current policies as boards become more aware of the requirement to protect against cyber-attacks.
"If insurers continue to simply rely on tight blanket policy restrictions and conservative pricing strategies to cushion the uncertainty, they are at serious risk of missing this rare market opportunity to secure high margins in a soft market," said Paul Delbridge, an insurance partner at PwC.
Delbridge also feels that if the cyber-insurance industry takes too long to innovate, there is a true risk that someone will attempt to trap the market with aggressive pricing and more favourable terms.
The PwC research further found that insurers and brokers can maximise opportunities as they manage exposures by maintaining their own cyber-risk management credibility; modeling expoures and potential losses; identifying concentrations of exposure; assessing and monitoring trends in frequencies, severities and in the types of attacks being executed.
