At a time when cyber insurance claims in North America have reached record levels, there’s a free-to-download resource that is available to help businesses and organizations better understand what cyber liability insurance is, what it covers, and, most importantly, why it’s become a vitally important part of a company’s risk management strategy.

Utilizing the knowledge and expertise of insurance professionals and members of the legal profession – as part of the Indiana Executive Council on Cybersecurity (IECC) – the Cyber Insurance Toolkit features a wealth of information from trusted sources that covers everything from the types of questions to consider asking as part of an underwriting document to understanding how you can implement reasonable security controls (without spending a great deal of money) while, at the same time, exercising due diligence.

Cyber insurance covers the financial risk and exposure that arises from unauthorized access to one’s network and the inappropriate disclosure of private or confidential information. It is also intended to guard against cybercrimes, such as business email compromise or funds transfer fraud. Cyber insurance is an important factor to consider when updating your cybersecurity policies or developing an incident response plan.

The easy-to-use Toolkit features several key sections, including:

• Underwriting questions that typically appear on an insurance application (along with the resources that’ll help you).
• Implementing (and what is meant by) “reasonable security controls”.
• Understanding what your risk exposure is (when) a data breach occurs.
• Glossary of Terms – as it relates to the insurance industry and policies, as well as cybersecurity and technology.

Given the fact that we’ve reached a point where technology-related activities that could impact a company or organization of any size includes not only cyberattacks, but also extends to misplaced cell phones and incidents involving the use of artificial intelligence (AI), it can be a challenge to understand what you need while, at the same time, balancing that with a policy that ensures you are covered for the exposures that are critical for providing adequate protection for your company’s most important assets and data.

According to the 2023 Internet Crime Report, from the FBI, Ransomware incidents continue to be impactful and costly, as there were more than 2,800 reported complaints and losses totaling $59.6 million.

This is especially important when to comes to handling someone’s Personally Identifiable Information (PII), such as Social Security numbers, bank account information and personal health information (such as HIPAA-covered information), as well as payment card information, or confidential corporate information, which could be addressed in a contract or agreement, or even something that is shared in an email or a text message.

For all those reasons, the Cyber Insurance Toolkit can provide a playbook to help make sense of the risks and liabilities before or, more precisely, when something happens that you and your company will have arrived at a solution that’s as affordable as it is effective.