Businesses invest billions of dollars in improving and maintaining their cybersecurity. In 2021, for example, organisations around the world spent around US$150 billion on cybersecurity.

And yet, sadly, there’s no guarantee that a successful cyberattack won’t occur on even the best-protected organisations. While it’s important to invest in an excellent cybersecurity system, it’s equally important to have mitigating measures in place should a cyberattack occur.

We’re talking about cyber insurance, and the need for businesses like yours to invest a solid, practical cyber insurance policy. In this post, the experts from Real Innovation Group explain everything you need to know about cyber insurance, and how exactly it works.

What is cyber insurance?

Cyber insurance protects your organisation from the financial, legal and reputational damages caused by the event of a cyberattack. It’s like any other insurance policy; you take it out so that, in the case of an unexpected event, you’re covered. The extent of coverage varies as outlined in the policy you agree to take out.

Cyber insurance is a service that not only helps protect you from the financial blow of cyber-attack, but also assists in the recovery of data, mitigation of cyber extortion and other factors which can prove greatly detrimental to your business.

How does it work?

Cyber insurance is simple. You choose a highly reputable cyber insurance agency, research their available policies and select one that suits your business.

Real Innovation Group offers a super easy process to acquiring cyber insurance:

1. Contact the team at Real Innovation Group
   It all starts with a chat with our friendly experts. We get to learn about your business, and start compiling information that will help us help you.
2. We discuss your options
   Next, we talk you through some of the most suitable cyber insurance policies that are specifically tailored to businesses like yours.
3. You’re officially cyber-insured
   We take care of the nitty gritty, sign some paperwork, and your business is officially protected from the risk of cyberattack!

What should your cyber insurance policy include?

Cyber insurance policies are adaptable, and should be catered to your business’s specific needs. A good quality cyber insurance policy should include areas like:

• Forensic investigations
• Litigation expenses
• Regulatory defence expenses/fines
• Crisis management expenses
• Business interruption
• Cyber extortion

Real Innovation Group offer flexible cyber insurance policies for all our Australian customers. We work alongside you to develop a solid, reliable cyber insurance policy that’s catered exactly to your needs.

Does my business really need cyber insurance?

Any business which uses the internet to conduct daily operations should ideally have a cyber insurance policy. This includes everyone from retail stores, to banks, to health practitioners, to service providers and more. The risk of going without cyber insurance is, sadly, just too great these days.

Just take the 2011 hacking of the Sony PlayStation Network, where 77 million users had their personally identifiable information exposed, causing a network outage for 23 days, and incurring over 171mil USD in costs associated with the breach. At the time, Sony didn’t have a cyber insurance policy, and had to pay all expenses out of their own pocket. With a cyber insurance policy, a significant portion of those costs would have been covered by it.

What are the benefits of cyber insurance?

Cyber insurance has several core benefits which make it an invaluable control to implement within your business:

• Protection from data theft
  Data theft is a concern for almost all businesses. Your business is most likely liable in the event of personally identifiable information (PII) or protected health information (PHI) is exposed. However, cyber insurance can cover defence expenses, remediation expenses and others incurred by data exposure.
• Lost or stolen devices
  The Australian Bureau of Statistics found that more than two thirds of Australians work from home regularly. If your employees use devices that contain sensitive material when working from home, then there’s always a risk that they could be stolen (in a break-in, for example), posing the threat of data exposure.A good cyber insurance policy should include Network and Information Security Liability, which covers failure to prevent unauthorised access to, or use of, data containing private or confidential information of others.
• Notification requirements
  When an information breach does occur, your business is required to notify each affected individual. This can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending of the scale of the breach. Cyber insurance can also be used to cover these costs in the event of a data breach.
• Computer forensics teams
  Computer forensics teams are necessary for assessing the scale of a data breach. Cyber insurance can cover part of the cost of hiring a forensics team, too.

Real Innovation Group are Australia’s experts in managed services, cyber security and cyber insurance, too. A team committed to flexibility and openness, Real Innovation Group are driven to provide you with the best cyber insurance policy for your organisation. Talk to the team about securing a great policy today.