Collaborate Disseminate
Ascend is moving insurance into the digital age by with a payments platform that combines financing, collections and payables. Continue reading Ascend raises $5.5M to provide a BNPL option for commercial insurance
The White House summit Wednesday demonstrated positive momentum for both the Biden administration and private sector in terms of their approach to cybersecurity, but also laid bare what remains inadequate, cyber experts said. The high-profile meeting brought together CEOs from the education, energy, finance, insurance and tech sectors, featuring companies like Amazon, Bank of America and ConocoPhillips. Some pledged billions more in cyber investments, while others committed to providing training and smaller services in response to the administration’s “call to action.” While impressive, observers noted, those commitments will require considerable follow-up, from expansion to other sectors to policy changes that could emerge from closer-knit relationships between industry and government. Even as the nonprofit Global Cyber Alliance’s Megan Stifel commended the White House for holding the meeting and the broad commitments that the companies made, she said it illustrated the lengths to which the U.S. can improve national cybersecurity. “A couple […]
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President Joe Biden will huddle Wednesday with industry leaders to issue a “call to action” on cybersecurity and make “concrete announcements” to counter the fundamental causes of cyberattacks, according to a senior administration official. It’s a star-studded afternoon gathering scheduled to include the likes of Apple CEO Tim Cook and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon from the financial, technology, energy, insurance and education sectors, then feature discussions led by top administration officials. The White House has been working to secure commitments from industry in advance of the meeting, mostly in the areas of “technology and talent,” the official said in a background call with reporters on Tuesday. Two points of emphasis, the official said, are building technology that is secure from the outset, and better defending critical infrastructure after the ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline led to a fuel scare. “We need to bake in security by design into tech,” […]
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It’s a sure sign of trouble when leading insurance industry executives are worried about their own prices going up. Two separate CEOs of major insurance giants remarked in recent weeks about a considerable jump in cyber insurance premium prices: AIG’s chief executive said rates increased by 40% for its clients, while Chubb’s chief executive said that company was charging more, too. Rather than welcoming the trend, Chubb CEO Evan Greenberg offered a warning. Those price increases, he said, still don’t reflect the grave risk that a catastrophic cyber event poses. “That is not addressing by itself the fundamental issue,” he said. Those are just two data points about how, in the past year, the evolution of ransomware has radically altered the landscape of cyber insurance, according to analysts inside and outside the industry. Cyber insurance covers a range of ransomware-related costs, like extortion demands, remediation efforts and other losses. Ransomware […]
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Continue reading Cyber insurance market encounters ‘crisis moment’ as ransomware costs pile up
Ransomware struck Japan’s largest property and casualty insurer, Tokio Marine Holdings, at its Singapore branch, the company disclosed on Monday. Tokio Marine, which has a U.S. division and offers a cyber insurance product, said it did not have any immediate indication that any customer information was breached. Such data could be a smorgasbord for hackers who would use the data to extort victims based on their coverage amounts. It’s at least the third major insurer to disclose a ransomware attack in recent months, following CNA and AXA. And it’s the second insurer just this week, with Ryan Specialty Group — fresh off launching an initial public offering — to disclose a cyber incident. Cyber insurers have, of late, taken to asking more detailed questions about policyholders’ cybersecurity safeguards as a condition for providing coverage. But the spate of recent successful attacks suggests that insurers, too, might need to step up […]
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Continue reading Japan’s Tokio Marine is the latest insurer to be victimized by ransomware
More than half of the U.S. population has stayed away from considering life insurance because they believe it’s probably too expensive, and the most common way to buy it today is in person. A startup that’s built a platform that aims to break down those conventions and democratize the process by making life insurance (and […] Continue reading Ethos picks up $100M at a $2.7B+ valuation for a big data platform to improve life insurance accessibility
Looking back, narrowly focusing on a branch of applied science undergoing a breakthrough paradigm shift that hadn’t yet reached the business world changed everything. Continue reading How we built an AI unicorn in 6 years
Life insurance — financial protection you buy against your death — may not read like the liveliest of industries on paper. But a life insurance startup that believes it can turn that stigma around, by infusing the concept with gamification and a push towards wellness and health — and change the life insurance industry in […] Continue reading YuLife nabs $70M at a $346M valuation for its gamified, wellness-oriented approach to life insurance
Twice in the past few weeks, insurers have joined together in response to the spiraling ransomware attacks that have rocked their industry. In mid-June, seven top insurance companies formed CyberAcuView, a company to combine their data collection and analysis powers in a bid to strengthen risk mitigation in the cyber insurance industry. The chief executive officer of CyberAcuView told CyberScoop that ransomware was one of the factors that drove creation of the company. Then, last week, the American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA) released its guiding principles on cyber extortion and ransomware, including its views on regulation. Both are signs of the cyber insurance world trying to wrap its arms around ransomware, a phenomenon that is leading to costlier payouts, prompting insurers to demand security improvements from policyholders and in some cases driving companies to step back from what they’re willing to cover. For instance, the annual growth rate in […]
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Continue reading Two cyber insurance industry initiatives grapple with rise of ransomware
As ransomware becomes more common, I’m seeing more discussions about the ethics of paying the ransom. Here’s one more contribution to that issue: a research paper that the insurance industry is hurting more than it’s helping.
However, the most pressing challenge currently facing the industry is ransomware. Although it is a societal problem, cyber insurers have received considerable criticism for facilitating ransom payments to cybercriminals. These add fuel to the fire by incentivising cybercriminals’ engagement in ransomware operations and enabling existing operators to invest in and expand their capabilities. Growing losses from ransomware attacks have also emphasised that the current reality is not sustainable for insurers either…