Specialty Insurance Blog

The Cyber Insurance Market & the DHS Industry Working Session

The Department of Homeland Security sponsored an insurance industry working session (see here) to find ways to generate a more robust Cyber Insurance market. The result so far has been a readout report (here). According to the Insurance Working Session Readout Report three areas could lead to a more robust market: Cyber incident information sharing/data repository – the idea here is to create a secure method to pool and share cyber incident information on an anonymized basis in a database accessible by insurers. Cyber incident consequence analysis – New data and modeling techniques would help insurers assess the loss value of a cyber-attack on critical infrastructure, and also the impact of various cyber risk management techniques. Most importantly, the techniques... Read more →

Alert: Business Email Compromise & Cyber Risk Insurance

Email Piracy, also called Business Email Compromise (BEC), is becoming a significant threat, and only a few Cyber Insurance policies provide adequate protection from this type of attack. Traditional IT security efforts may not be adequate; different (additional) measures may be necessary. Most employees are not well prepared for this exposure, and internal communication is recommended. Cyber Insurance should be reviewed for coverage. Email piracy is the theft of funds using deceptive email or electronic communications. Other names include Business Email Compromise (BEC), CEO Fraud and social engineering fraud, and this type of activity is rising rapidly. Email piracy attacks vary, but there is a common theme (see our prior post) of deception. Hackers gain access to an email account,... Read more →

New Insurance Agency Formations Offset Consolidation

AM Best released an interview with this author at NAPSLO last week where we discussed insurance agency/broker consolidation. The trade press reports on the highly active M&A market for insurance agencies and brokers, with acquisitions of agencies and brokers announced most every day. However, new insurance agencies and brokers are being formed every day and are not being covered by the trade press. Comments from the interview: What you don't read about are the new [insurance agent] operations being formed every day… The barriers to entry used to be systems, compliance and markets... It is a lot easier these days for new [insurance agent] operations to form, to get into business and to be successful. (starting at about 2:00 in... Read more →

Recap: Inside Today’s Surplus lines Market

AM Best released a recap of their September 2nd webinar, Inside Today’s Surplus lines Market, in which this author was a participant. A similar Insurance Journal article (here) discussed the Surplus Lines Insurance market. AM Best also released their annual report, titled 2015 Special Report U.S. Surplus Lines – Segment Review (see here). Two quotes: There is an overall healthy level of strong competition going on in the profession today…However, it is an underwriting-driven market that provides some stability. Technology contributes a great deal to the success of the E&S industry…Much of that growth stems from innovation, the hallmark of E&S professionals. eSpecialty Insurance is your specialty insurance expert. We have developed a streamlined marketplace to provide multiple proposals from... Read more →

Protection for Non-Profit Service: Non-Profit D&O

Serving on the board of a non-profit entity brings exposures, and as a Director of a non-profit you should ensure that the non-profit you are associated with has Directors and Officers (D&O) insurance for protection (see prior posts here, here & here). Directors and Officers (D&O) insurance protects against legal judgments and related expenses resulting from allegations of wrongful acts committed by individuals in their capacity as directors and officers. Most D&O insurance policies for non-profits include a coverage called employment practices liability insurance, which protects the non-profit and its employees from legal judgments and related expenses resulting from allegations of wrongful acts committed in the employment realm. A recent article (see here) describes the importance of D&O insurance, including... Read more →