Re/insurers must make it their priority to better understand cyber risk and absorb more of this liability—serving a vital role for society and generating growth for the industry in the process, Doris Höpke, member of Munich Re’s board of management, told Baden-Baden Today.
Munich Re has pushed cyber risk to the top of its agenda at the conference in Baden-Baden this year. It was the key focus of the world’s biggest reinsurer’s annual media breakfast where it laid out the size of the problem in stark terms and confirmed that it is one of its main strategic growth areas.
Höpke highlighted the fact that cyber crime will cost the global economy around $600 billion in 2018—0.8 percent of global GDP, a figure which makes losses from natural catastrophes look small in comparison. The 10-year average for global economic losses from natural catastrophes is around $180 billion, she explained.
Things are set to get worse as the world becomes even more connected. There are now some 27 billion connected devices globally, and this is set to increase to 125 billion by 2030, Höpke said.
If digital services were to become unavailable, the market would be faced with a new type of…
