If you run your own business or are looking to start your own entrepreneurship, business insurance is crucial. There are a wide range of different insurance types available to businesses, such as professional liability insurance, workers compensation insurance and product liability insurance to name just a few. While some of these insurances are optional, others may be a requirement by state or national law to run your business.
While some business owners may stick to just the essential insurances, the benefits of optional policies, such as cyber crime insurance, can be highly beneficial to a business. With cyber crimes increasing at an alarming rate and more businesses moving their services and data to the cloud, now’s the time to invest in the right cyber crime insurance policy for your business.
What Is Cyber Crime?
Cyber crimes are committed against you or your business online by hackers or criminals. They attempt to compromise your business’s online systems to steal business data, personal information, credit card details, money and so on. In some cases, they may even hold your business data for ransom, asking you to pay a ridiculous amount of money to re-gain access to your information. Cyber crimes have always caused chaos online, since the very beginning of the internet. However, they are becoming more and more prevalent as the years pass.
Why Is Cyber Insurance So Important In 2018?
As cloud computing and online businesses continue to rise in popularity, hackers have started to look for vulnerabilities in the cyber security of businesses. While cyber security technology is continually advancing, so are the hackers and fraudsters, developing more sophisticated ways in which to steal your business data and money.
Cyber crime insurance is especially vital for businesses which gather and store customer information and payment information. If a cyber breach does occur, customers’ information could be compromised. This can cause customers to lose faith in your business and take their business elsewhere – they may even lay legal charges against your business for negligence.
How Cyber Crime Insurance Can Protect Your Business
Taking out a cyber crime insurance policy can help to mitigate the potential risks from online fraudsters. It will help to cover the costs involved in recovering or replacing lost business data, managing claims and any financial losses you suffer as a result of an attack.
Cyber crime insurance companies will assess how well you are protecting your business information and systems. From this, they will provide recommendations on systems you should put in place to bolster your business’s cyber security. Staff training should also be rolled out, to ensure all necessary measures are taken to reduce the chance of an attack on your business’s data.
What Usually Is Covered:
- Loses incurred due to interruptions in business operations
- Cost of recovering and replacing any business records or data
- Legal costs involved in defending claims
- Costs involved in handling cyber extortion demands
- Damages to reputation caused by data breaches
- Any costs arising from managing a cyber attack
What Usually Isn’t Covered:
- Criminal acts that have been committed on purpose by you or your business
- Damage to computer hardware
- Hackers online using the internet to steal your money
- Cyber-attacks that you were aware of prior to the attack
Finding Adequate Protection
What is and is not covered in your cyber crime insurance policy depends heavily on the provider with whom you take out the policy. When deciding on the right policy for you and your business, spend time researching and analysing policies from multiple providers.
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To find the policy that will best suit your business, speak to a cyber crime insurance broker. Brokers have access to and understand in detail the policies provided by multiple insurers – so they will be able to match you with the perfect insurance policy, or tailor a solution to best suit your business.
Author Bio
This article is written by Alex Hamilton, on behalf of Professional Essentials – Providers of cyber insurance policies to suit all businesses. You can catch Alex on Google+.
