The statistics illustrating the explosion of ransomware over the past two years have become all too familiar for anyone with a stake in the insurance industry.
Attacks increased nearly 150% since COVID-19-induced work-from-home commenced and ransomware payouts for U.S. businesses have exploded in the last two years — from under $10K to more than $178K per event at the end of Q2 2020, with large enterprises averaging payouts over $1M. The full list of eye-burning statistics seems endless.
The insurance industry has become painfully aware of the threat this poses to their commercial and cyber portfolios in particular. Until recently, the cyber market had enjoyed a few years of plain sailing with average loss ratios as low as 34% in 2018. Rising claims, largely driven by ransomware, pushed this up to nearly 50% in 2019 and even higher in 2020. Today, an increasing number of carriers’ cyber loss ratios exceed 100%.
We are now seeing worrying signs that cyber insurers are in retreat. Reports suggest…
