Delta Insurance has partnered with global security leader DynaRisk to deliver a cyber-protection and insurance product for businesses and their employees and customers across the Asia-Pacific region.
Delta Insurance Group managing director Ian Pollard said the cyber-risk product, which will be managed and marketed from Delta Insurance’s New Zealand and Singapore offices, was a first for the Asia-Pacific region, where industry commentators have long lamented the lack of innovation in cyber-risk solutions targeted at smaller enterprises.
Delta Insurance New Zealand chief executive Craig Kirk said cyber-attacks increased 205% last year in New Zealand and individuals bore the brunt of 65% of the financial losses reported in 2018 to CERT NZ, the New Zealand Government’s cyber-attack monitoring department.
One in five of the 3445 cyber-breaches incurred a financial loss; total losses for 2018 came to $14 million – “and that was only those matters reported; inevitably this is likely to be the tip of the iceberg,” he said.
“Netsafe has also reported that the losses were around $33 million from 13,000 instances of scams or fraud.”
Currently 82% of losses from cyber-attacks are not reimbursed, and victims take on average nine hours to recover, Kirk said. “Businesses can lose whole days of trading.”
While cyber-insurance isn’t new, the combination of insurance and risk mitigation in this part of the world is, Pollard said. “We’ve been involved in cyber-insurance for some time, but we’ve been concerned there hasn’t been much in the way of proactive and user-friendly, upfront protection against cyber-crime available.
“We’re passionate about this area and have been looking for some time for a product like DynaRisk, which mitigates risk by providing an initial assessment of the current state of exposure and then provides practical, guided steps that customers can take to improve their risk position. While we can provide DynaRisk independently of an insurance solution, it also sits perfectly with a robust insurance package for those hopefully rare occasions when breaches do occur. We’re thrilled to have entered into this exclusive partnership with DynaRisk in the Asia-Pacific and Australasian region.”
Kirk said the Delta/DynaRisk package was intended initially for businesses but was perfectly applicable to their customers, their employees or their family members. “We’ll be offering it to both new and existing commercial cyber-insurance customers, individuals and their families.”
He said affinity partners such as banks and telecommunications companies would be strongly attracted by the opportunity the product presented to minimise cyber-exposure for their customers, while insurance brokers will welcome a solution for the increasing number of clients suffering cyber-scams and fraud.
“In addition to SMEs, we’re keen to work with banks, life insurers, telecommunications and technology companies and corporates in general to build this product into what they offer their customers and employees – and the response so far has been enthusiastic. But this is a package that can benefit anyone who is exposed to the internet’s cyber-dangers and we’ll be exploring how it may be possible to take this offering to an even wider audience.”
Pollard said customers taking up the offering received a cyber-security scorecard which told them how well-protected they were, a step-by-step continuous action plan to tighten security and monitoring of multiple devices, a personal dashboard which included alerts if security and anti-virus software were not installed or were vulnerable, simulated phishing, and router scans. “DynaRisk helps the customer avoid losing sensitive information, photos and data, suffering fraudulent transactions or personal information theft, and being attacked by ransomware.”
Kirk said, for businesses, the scorecard also enabled them to identify if employees’ data was on the dark web, which could increase company exposure to cyber-attack.
DynaRisk has access to 1.4 billion records where individuals are comprised through email and password theft on the dark web that they can review, and it reduces this risk of such theft by specifically enabling employees, the weakest link in almost all cyber-attacks, to reduce their cyber-risk exposure.
DynaRisk founder and chief executive Andrew Martin said customers and small businesses were increasingly asking their cyber insurers to mitigate their risks because they wanted more than just an insurance policy to help keep them safe. “We are thrilled to join with Delta and bundle our Cyber Security Score into consumer and small business policies. Together, we can now offer insureds a comprehensive prevention, monitoring and response solution backed by insurance.”
