Zurich and Marsh McLennan look to bridge cyber protection gap

Zurich and Marsh McLennan have released a new white paper urging public and private collaboration to close the cyber protection gap.

The whitepaper, entitled Closing the cyber risk protection gap, highlights the need for more propositions to address the gap between risk and insurance.

It notes that small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), often uninsured or underinsured, are particularly vulnerable to threats, with attacks outpacing the capacity of traditional insurance and risk management products.

According to data published in February 2024 from IT support provider AAG, around a third (32%) of UK businesses reported suffering a cyber attack or breach last year – this rose to 59% for medium-sized companies and 69% for large organisations.

Meanwhile, Hiscox’s annual Cyber Readiness Report, published on 10 October 2023, revealed that that cyber attacks on small businesses with less than 10 employees rose from 23% to 36% over the last three years.

Mario Greco, group chief executive at Zurich, said: “The threat of cyber attacks poses a significant risk to both societal and economic stability.

“As insurers, we can offer some degree of protection, but we must acknowledge that large-scale, catastrophic cyber events present substantial accumulation risks that cannot be borne by the private sector alone.

“Therefore, enhancing cyber resilience is vital to addressing this protection gap. Achieving this requires strong public-private partnerships to develop comprehensive strategies that secure our digital future.”

Frameworks

According to the whitepaper, establishing a unified data-sharing framework, enhanced collaboration and innovation between the insurance industry and the public sector is key for closing the protection gap, increasing resilience and defending against rising cyber threats.

The paper highlights that this not only includes ransomware attacks and threats from malicious actors, but also global IT outages and other interconnected incidents.

John Doyle, president and chief executive at Marsh McLennan, said: “The severe threat presented by cyber risks requires collective action to bridge the protection gap.

“Through greater collaboration, we can develop innovative solutions, inform insurance buyers, enhance the cyber insurance market and establish robust public-private partnerships that safeguard our society and economy from potentially catastrophic cyber events.”