The UK’s small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) are increasingly taking on cyber-insurance to help mitigate risk as incidents increase, but levels remain low overall, according to new research from GlobalData.
The consulting firm’s UK Cyber Insurance 2017 report reveals that penetration of cyber-related insurance policies among the country’s SMBs grew from just 2% in 2014 to nearly 14% last year.
That’s low compared to take-up of other “commercial products”, according to the report.
GlobalData analyst, Danielle Cripps, claimed in a statement that SMEs are arguably the most in need of insurance as they have the fewest resources to recover from cyber-attacks.
However, she added that the forthcoming European data protection laws would help to drive adoption further, ensuring SMEs have the policies in place to help them swiftly recover in the event of a breach or similar.
“Insurance will help by providing financial support, and may additionally give access to extra technical support from experts called out to help with a claim,” Cripps argued.
“Businesses will also have more accountability and conditions to comply with, making them more liable under the new regulation. The additional risk this creates means businesses are more likely to seek cover which will help drive the market.”
When taken as a whole, the UK’s businesses significantly increased their adoption of cyber-insurance. It grew 50% between 2015 and 2016, according to stats from CFC Underwriting.
Over a quarter (26%) claimed the GDPR had driven them to invest.
The insurance provider also revealed that the UK represents just 8% of CFC’s policy count yet 17% of its claims count – indicating low levels of cybersecurity maturity.
Privacy breaches (31%) accounted for the largest number of claims, followed by financial loss (22%) and ransomware (16%). Malware accounted for only 7% of claims, followed by DDoS attacks (5%), “unauthorised access to systems” (5%), and business interruption (4%).