It was more than 20 years ago. The Internet as it is known today was in its infancy. Steven Haase was with an insurance agency in Atlanta focused on insuring technology companies.
“Around 1995, I saw the commercialization of the Internet. I was working with these clients and they had major exposures. I was trying to figure out what I was going to do about it,” he recalls.
The agency that started out as Network Risk Management Services is today known as INSUREtrust, a cyber liability wholesaler and Haasee is CEO.
Among his clients were several large and early Internet players; one invented online banking, one was the largest network security company. The company that invented online banking had bought a bank and started processing everything, lots of data, through the Internet.
“I’m looking at it. They have auto insurance, workers’ comp, property insurance, D&O, EPLI, but they have all this data, and all this exposure. I started shopping the marketplace to put something together. Nobody wanted to do it. There wasn’t really a good methodology for loss control, loss prevention.”
Then he got lucky.
“I happened to be at AIG visiting a friend who was…
