As a broker, you take on an important role for your clients. As cyber attacks continue to thwart our security systems, it’s become clear that these have to be taken seriously. In fact, the World Economic Forum placed cybersecurity among the top of current global risks. The cyber exposures that your clients face can have devastating consequences on their businesses and livelihood. The coverage they obtain through their broker is essential in allowing their businesses to survive and thrive. Cyber insurance training for brokers is now an absolute necessity to make sure clients receive the best coverage options available.
Understanding how to become a cyber insurance agent that goes above and beyond requires extensive knowledge and continuing education. However, this important role will provide your clients with the data security they need to grow as a business.
Six Steps Brokers Should Take to Succeed
Know the Industry
The key to providing your clients with the best possible coverage is understanding the niche cyber liability insurance market. Cyber liability insurance is complex and high-risk and is designed to protect your clients from the breach of Personal Identifiable Information (PII), along with cyber threats such as ransomware and social engineering.
This type of policy provides both first-party and third-party coverages:
First–Party
This coverage is related to the immediate impacts of a breach on the Insured, including:
- IT forensics
- Notification costs
- Credit protection for those affected
- Crisis management
- Ransomware protection
- Digital asset damage protection
- Business Interruption protection
Third-Party
This coverage is related to lawsuits and regulatory ramifications, including:
- Breach of contract
- Negligence
- PCI fines & penalties
Any organization who uses technology needs a cyber liability policy. Understanding these types of insurance coverage will allow you to help select the right policy for your clients.
Provide Risk Management
Cyber risk management is constantly evolving as threats change at a rapid pace.
Helping your clients identify and manage cyber risks will allow them to prevent cyber attacks, save on costs, and help keep their premiums lower. By highlighting your clients’ exposures, you can help them understand what data or information is at risk and what protections they can add to keep these assets safe. This may include outlining your clients’ financial exposure based on the amount of data at risk and heavily reviewing their contracts with all third-party vendors.
Stay Current
What makes the cyber insurance industry so volatile is the ever-evolving threats. These cyber security threats take on a new shape every day so preventing them is extremely difficult. This means that coverage to protect clients from these threats has to adapt as well. Staying current in the industry allows you to ensure that any potential exposures your clients face will have the best possible coverage available.
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Identify Threats
As agents and brokers, it’s important that you’re able to educate your clients on the latest attacks. It’s often that human error can lead to a serious data breach.
Understanding how to identify these attacks that manipulate and rely on human emotion is your clients’ first line of defense. It’s important that you keep them current on the latest phishing, social engineering, and ransomware attacks that they may face without realizing it. In addition, they should be encouraged to keep their software up to date and use complex passwords to prevent unauthorized individuals from gaining access to their systems.
Understand a Data Response Plan
How quickly your clients respond to a data breach has an enormous effect on how extensive the damages will be. The faster the response, the more they can mitigate the potential damages of the attack. A slow response can allow the hacker to gain access to more private information and further destroy the organization’s public perception.
A Data Breach Response Plan identifies all parties who will be involved in responding to the breach and exactly what role each of them will play. This allows everyone to take immediate action so no time is wasted in mitigating the damages.
Sell Cyber Liability Insurance
A cyber liability policy is ultimately your client’s most important step in protecting themselves from cyber attacks. It’s been reported that nearly 60% of small businesses fold within six months of a cyber attack as the damages related to these continue to increase. Cyber coverage has become an absolute necessity for any organization that utilizes technology and the internet.
With ProWriters, we’ve made it easier than ever to sell cyber to your clients. Our streamlined processes and Cyber IQ Comparative Rate Platform allows you to compare coverage fast to select the best possible options for your clients.
Excel With ProWriters
ProWriters offers more than 20 years of industry experience in this complex and highly volatile cyber market. We’ve worked to provide brokers with the most streamlined processes available. As we strive to save you time, we’ve eliminated all unnecessary questions and steps by consistently reevaluating the systems we have in place to provide the best experience for brokers, agents, and their clients.
Our broker resources are unmatched with FREE marketing materials and educational or risk management resources that are available for download right from our site.
For more information on how to become a cyber insurance agent who provides the best possible service to their clients, contact a ProWriters expert today or call us with any questions at 484-321-2335.
