Almost Four Times More Budget Is Being Spent On Property-Related Risks vs. Cyber-Risk

The 2017 Cyber Risk Transfer Comparison Global Report, released last week by the Ponemon Institute, a leading research firm on privacy, data protection, and information security and sponsored by Aon, found that organizations now believe that their cyber-assets are more valuable than plant, property, and equipment assets, even though they are spending four times more budget on insurance protecting the latter risks.

"This unique cyber study found a serious disconnect in risk management," said Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute. "What's interesting is that the majority of companies cover plant, property, and equipment losses, insuring an average of 59 percent and self-insuring 28 percent. Cyber is almost the opposite, as companies are insuring an average of 15 percent and self-insuring 59 percent."

While the majority of surveyed respondents find that cyber-insurance is inadequate to meet the needs of their organization, is too expensive, and has too many exclusions, 46 percent of respondents reported a data breach in the last 2 years, with the average financial impact costing $3.6 million. Based on data breaches and security exploits experienced by the surveyed organizations, the greatest threats are business process failures that caused disruption to business operations, as well as cyber-attacks that caused disruption to both business and IT operations. Looking ahead, 65 percent of organizations expect their cyber-risk exposure to increase in the next 2 years.

"This study compared the relative insurance protection of certain tangible versus intangible assets," added Kevin Kalinich, cyber/network global practice leader at Aon Risk Solutions. "We have found that most organizations spend multiples more premium for fire insurance, for example, than for cyber insurance, even though they state in their publicly disclosed documents that a majority of the organization's value is attributed to intangible assets."

Aon's 2017 Global Risk Management Survey also found that cyber-risk is a top concern for most businesses in the United States and globally. As a result, many companies are implementing formal assessments to identify and measure their cyber-risk. While this risk is being recognized as a significant threat, it is often not properly managed on a relative basis compared to other growing assets and risk. This is having an impact on many companies' bottom lines.

Additional Findings

• 63 percent of companies that experienced a data breach in the last 2 years are now more concerned than before about their cyber-liability.
• 82 percent of companies have access to cyber-security forensic experts in the event of a data breach.
• 36 percent of respondents say their organizations do not have to disclose a material loss that is not covered by insurance in their financial statements, but if they do, 41 percent of respondents say they would include it in a footnote of a financial report.
• 71 percent of survey respondents are either somewhat or not at all aware of the economic and legal consequences of upcoming regulations, such as the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).