Cyber liability insurance for fleet operators

In a world becoming more and more digital, businesses are at more risk now than ever against cyber-crime. Cyber liability insurance (also known as cyber risk, or simply cyber insurance) is one of the fastest growing areas of cover required by businesses, as technology shows no signs of stopping.

What is cyber liability insurance?

Cyber insurance is designed to protect your business from threats such as data breaches or malicious cyber hacks on computer systems used for your work. Cyber insurance covers first-party financial losses to you or your business such as theft of funds, theft of data, and/or damage to digital assets. It also covers third-party costs that might be brought against you such as investigation and defence costs, civil damages, and compensation payments to affected parties.

Some cyber insurance policies also offer support with income loss if your business needs to close temporarily because of a cyber-attack, and assistance with, and management of, cyber incidents both before and after an incident has occurred.

Why do I need it?

If your fleet operator business uses, sends, or stores data electronically, you’ll almost definitely benefit from cyber insurance. Most data stored online is vulnerable to a cyber-attack or data breach, so having the right insurance in place can limit the damage that is caused if the worst happens.

As a business owner, you’re responsible for your own cyber security – which is a big responsibility to hold. Having cyber insurance will mean that it’s not all on you to fix if you fall victim of a cyber-attack.

What are the benefits of having cyber liability cover?

• Improved security standard – your insurer can help improve and redefine security standards
• Cyber extortion – cover for threats received by email/phone/letter demanding payment in exchange for not publishing or releasing private information that could damage your company’s reputation and cause loss of business
• Support – cyber cover can provide crucial support to keep your business running after an attack

Here are some real-life examples of what could go wrong:

Data breach

Several laptops were stolen from business premises. The laptops were unencrypted and contained client confidential information.

The insurer instructed legal counsel and forensic analysis. Forensics established that almost 900 individuals needed to be notified and credit monitoring services initiated

Total claim cost: £200,000

Business email compromise

An employee of a small motor trade business with one site, three employees, one director and a stock of circa 50 cars at any one time opened a Dropbox link from a potential seller to see photographs of a car. On clicking the link, the employee was asked to enter their Microsoft Outlook log-in credentials, which they did. Not realising they’d been duped by a phishing email scam, in doing so they’d allowed the criminal access to the business’ shared mailbox. The criminal used the compromised email account to contact the director requesting a transfer of £15,000 to be made to purchase a vehicle from a wholesaler known to the business (this is common practice). The invoice sent by the fraudster contained alternative bank details.

Insurers were notified and were able to track the criminal and prevent the payment being made, saving the client £15,000. A full IT forensic investigation was required, including scans and remedial works, and an Information Commissioner’s Office/consumer notification as the criminal had gained access to an email inbox containing personally identifiable information of multiple individuals

Total claim cost: £26,000

Ransomware

An employee of a small chain of MOT centres received an email from someone they believed to be a customer, requesting an MOT plus additional repair works for their vehicle. The “customer” attached an image of the repair works that needed to be undertaken, but the image was not a JPG or image file. It was an executable file disguised as a JPG and contained sophisticated ransomware software. The employee opened the attached file, believing it to be an image, and almost immediately suffered a significant ransomware attack, which crippled their shared IT network. While the business operated primarily as a garage, they could not access their central system to log work orders/produce invoices/track customer details and, crucially, link in with the necessary bodies to produce the MOT documentation required.

The business suffered significant disruption for around 15 days while their systems were taken offline, restored from back-ups, brought back up online and tested in a controlled manner. The business did not have cyber liability insurance, so it was only by way of a favour for the broker that insurers offered limited advice as to how to deal with the incident.

Total claim cost: Unknown due to no insurance coverage, however at the time insurers were engaged, the business interruption costs alone had exceeded £420,000 and the total costs were estimated to be more than £920,000.

Being the company director or officer of a self-drive hire business, you already have a million things to think about. Let us take one of them off your mind so you can rest assured that your policy has your back when you need it. Contact our Self-Drive Hire team today on 01252 377546 or [email protected].