Cyber Decider: Cyber insurance comparison engine launches
Brokers and comparison engines haven’t always gone hand in hand – from Gocompare to Moneysupermarket, the big comparison websites have widely been viewed as taking business away from the broker.
However, now a comparison engine has launched that it claims is not only a “world first” but also has been made to actually assist brokers.
Cyber Decider, which launches this week, has been created to compare and analyse policies in the ultra-hot cyber insurance market. It has been built by cyber risk and incident response specialists STORM Guidance and initially provides comparisons of 16 different policies from insurers – around 80% of the current market.
“Until now, the inability for brokers to easily compare policies has been a real handbrake on the development of the cyber insurance market,” said Neil Hare-Brown, CEO of Cyber Decider. “Cyber Decider makes this a thing of the past, effectively providing brokers and others with a straightforward comparison for these complex and variable policies.
“For instance, for the numerous brokers without a specialist cyber team, analysing policies involves a lot of work for a small part of the overall client premium. Consequently, many only offer one policy, but this will invariably not be the best policy for many of their clients as it will not cover areas that are important for them or, conversely, they will be paying for additional coverage they don’t want.
“To solve this, over the past nine months we have been working with insurers, brokers and others in London and elsewhere to develop a clear, consistent and ultra-easy-to-use product.”
According to Hare-Brown, only around 10% of SME businesses in Britain have cyber insurance – but they are now starting to actively look for cover particularly on the back of a series of high-profile incidents.
“Many policies actually do not include important business interruption costs from such attacks, so Cyber Decider will help brokers capitalize on this growth in demand as they can now confidently offer the right policy without having to spend days going through numerous policies with a fine-tooth comb,” he said.
It was suggested that the tool may be particularly useful to brokers given the different definitions and terms used in the industry, and the large variability between policies.