Best Cyber Insurance

Companies that deal with customers’ personally identifiable data have a responsibility to protect that data. Tragically, security breaches still happen, even with the best security measures. That’s why businesses need cyber insurance. It helps them recover after a breach and rebuild their reputation. Find your cyber security options now by reviewing this list of the top options.

Quick Look: Best Cyber Insurance

• Best for Large Policy Limits: The Hartford
• Best for Fast Policy Comparison: Simply Business
• Best for Startups: Hiscox
• Best for Managing Insurance Policies in One Place: CoverWallet
• Best for Short-term Insurance: Thimble
• Best for Quoting Hundreds of Carriers: Tivly
• Best for Instant Quotes: Next Insurance

7 Best Cyber Insurance

Get the tools to recover from a security breach by purchasing one of these leading cyber insurance coverage options.

Best for Large Policy Limits: The Hartford

With more than two centuries of experience providing high-quality insurance products to customers, The Hartford is a leader in the industry. While it serves businesses of all sizes, its greatest strength is with large businesses with hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue. 

The coverage is thorough, including protection for reputational loss, ransomware and more. While you can get a quote for insurance online, it might be easier to talk with a licensed insurance agent to see whether you fit the requirements, especially given the limited industries the company serves.

• Average cost: Variable based on revenue, claims history, types of data you handle and number of customers
• Quote process: Online
• Policy purchase process: Online
• States served: All 50

Best for Fast Policy Comparison: Simply Business

Simply Business is not an insurance provider but an insurance brokerage. It is an online system that helps connect customers with ideal insurance solutions. At Simply Business, you can get a quote and find a variety of business insurance types, from coverage for accountants to landscaping companies. By answering a few quick questions, you can pull quotes from a variety of insurance companies that are the right fit for your needs.

• Average cost: Varies based on the company you select
• Quote process: Online
• Policy purchase process: Online
• States served: All 50

Best for Startups: Hiscox

Small businesses find Hiscox to be a great insurance option to meet their needs. It offers all the essentials: data breach coverage, data recovery, cyber crime, cyber extortion and business interruption. All those coverages come at an affordable price, which is ideal when businesses are just getting started. 

The largest setback to this option is that it does not scale well for businesses in high-growth mode. That’s because its coverage maximum is $2 million.

• Average cost: Starts at $66 per month
• Quote process: Call 1-833-816-2811
• Policy purchase process: Call 1-833-816-2811
• States served: All 50

Best for Managing Insurance Policies in One Place: CoverWallet

Compare commercial insurance quotes from many insurance providers at once using CoverWallet. The online insurance broker can help businesses save time by quoting multiple insurance carriers at once. The company also offers insurance coverage consolidation. When you have policies with multiple companies that are complex to handle, you can pay an annual fee to manage all policies through CoverWallet to ease the management process.

• Average cost: Variable based on the company you select
• Quote process: Online, though some insurance carriers will call you with a quote
• Policy purchase process: Mostly online, though some carriers require phone calls
• States served: All except Rhode Island and Vermont

Best for Short-term Insurance: Thimble

Thimble is an online insurance broker that helps business owners get quotes from multiple insurance companies when they need coverage. One unique aspect that this company offers is the ability to purchase short-term insurance, even for as short as an hour. This can be good for event companies or seasonal companies that don’t need insurance all year long.

• Average cost: Starting at $100
• Quote process: Online
• Policy purchase process: Online
• States served: All except Washington and New York

Best for Quoting Hundreds of Carriers: Tivly

Get quotes from more than 200 insurance companies in minutes with Tivly. Using the insurance marketplace, you can find the best carrier with the best prices based on your business’s unique needs. Some carriers will still require that you contact them directly to finalize purchasing the insurance policy, but you’ll be prequalified once you’ve gone through Tivly as the marketplace hands off the information you’ve entered to transfer your inquiry seamlessly.

• Average cost: $132 per month
• Quote process: Online or by calling 877-834-1911
• Policy purchase process: Varies based on the carrier you select
• States served: All 50

Best for Instant Quotes: Next Insurance

Get business insurance quotes within 10 minutes from a variety of carriers with up to 25% off in discounts based on your unique insurance situation. Go from getting a quote to purchasing insurance all online on your schedule and not exclusively during traditional business hours. While the company has many happy customers, it also has some complaints through the Better Business Bureau.

• Average cost: Variable based on the carrier you select
• Quote process: Online
• Policy purchase process: Mostly online, but some carriers require a phone call
• States served: 49 states, excluding New York

What Is Cyber Insurance?

Cyber insurance offers coverage for data breaches and cyber crimes. Businesses of all sizes can face a hack or virus that massively disrupts their business. Insurance coverage protects your business and its assets from data breaches that involve customers’ sensitive information. 

In exchange for paying monthly premiums, you’ll get financial coverage in case of a cyber-related incident. 

Cyber insurance for businesses is generally a standalone policy that helps protect financial interests to keep a business running and notify customers in case of a breach. Personal cyber insurance is often an add-on to homeowners insurance and can aid in removing viruses from personal devices, help with cyberbullying restoration, recovery from ransomware attacks, data breach coverage when volunteer or other work involves other people’s personally identifiable information and online fraud coverage.

How Does Cyber Insurance Work?

Cyber insurance provides financial protection from cybercrime and attacks. It is often an add-on to a commercial liability policy. It works much like other insurance products where it protects against risks and offers financial restoration in case of an incident.

Companies can get coverage for their reputation and lost revenue in case of a breach or hack. Take a look at an example to see how this insurance works.

In 2011, hackers breached the PlayStation network, exposing information related to 77 million users. For 23 days, users could not access the system. The hack cost Sony Group Corp. $171 million because of reputational damage, covering the affected users for reporting and ongoing monitoring. 

What Does Cyber Liability Insurance Cover?

When you purchase cyber liability insurance, you should look into these coverages that may or may not be included based on the policy language.

Network Security

Receive coverage in the case of a network security failure, such as a data breach or malware infection. In these cases, you’ll have coverage for legal expenses, IT forensics, notification to customers, call center expenses, public relations, negotiation and payment of ransomware, restoration of data and credit monitoring and identity restoration for affected customers.

Privacy Liability

After a breach, you might face a class action lawsuit related to the incident or legal fees and fines from regulators for investigating the situation. If you operate in multiple countries, you could face fees and fines from multiple jurisdictions in the case of a data breach.

Network Business Interruption

When you face operational cyber risks, network business interruption can help. If a network or provider you rely on for your business goes down, you can claim lost profits and incurred expenses under this coverage.

Media Liability

Get coverage for your intellectual property that is not covered under patent infringement. The most common use cases for this coverage include your social media posts and online ads.

Errors and Omissions

When a business experiences a cyber attack, it might not be able to keep its contractual obligations to customers and third parties, leading to errors in contract performance and delivery. This is where errors and omissions coverage comes in. Should you experience a breach of contract resulting from a cyber attack, you’ll have coverage for legal defense costs and indemnification to solve these disputes.

Social Engineering Coverage

Your employees might innocently send money from your business bank account to complete what they believe to be a legitimate business transaction. Phishing emails can look very real but are just a way hackers get access to your business bank account information. And it can be quite costly without adequate coverage. You won’t see this on all cyber insurance plans so if this is important to you, read policy information closely.

Reputational or Brand Damage Coverage

After a cyber attack, you might face ongoing reputational harm. That harm is not confined to the time of the actual attack. Coverage can help you rebuild your reputation after an incident.

Bricking Coverage

Following an attack, you might have equipment that is useless because of malware. This could be some laptops or it might be a whole server. Bricking coverage helps purchase new equipment in these cases.

What Is Not Covered?

While cyber insurance is a smart move for businesses that handle customer information, you should know some of the limitations of this coverage.

• Business interruption for systems that third parties manage or oversee unless you have a dependent system failure as a result
• Criminal proceedings, such as a grand jury hearing or criminal investigation
• Intentional fraud or criminal misconduct on behalf of your employees
• Prior acts that predate the coverage start date or items that you knew about before beginning coverage
• Subsidiaries that you do not have majority ownership or control over

Pros and Cons of Cyber Coverage

Before buying cyber coverage, learn the pros and cons a policy can provide.

Pros

• Financial loss protection
• Legal protection
• Minimization of potential reputation damage
• Regulation or industry compliance

Cons

• Expensive premiums
• All policies have exclusions and limitations you’ll need to read closely
• Can provide a false sense of security to some businesses

Risk Mitigation in an Online World

Today, so much business takes place online. Even businesses that do business entirely through a storefront use technology such as databases and payment gateways to power their business, leaving them susceptible to cyber-attacks. Talk to your insurance agent about whether cyber insurance should be a part of your protection.

Frequently Asked Questions