Tag: talent

Cyber Insurance Market: Carriers Navigating through a Changing Risk Landscape

With increased cyber attacks and data breaches post-pandemic, cyber insurance to protect against the rising digital threats is growing in demand. Cyber insurers can benefit by partnering with service providers to seize opportunities for growth and profitability in this fast-growing market. Read on to learn how.     

Cybersecurity continues to be a top priority for enterprises across all industries, primarily driven by increased cyber attacks and data breaches in the wake of COVID-19. Enterprises are increasingly strengthening firm-wide cyber defenses and turning to cyber insurance as a mitigating measure to counter the rising threats in today’s increasingly digitized world.

In particular, the pandemic has accelerated the severity, frequency, and complexity of ransomware attacks. Data from the US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) suggests the total value of suspicious activity reported in ransomware-related incidents during the first six months of 2021 was US$590 million, more than the US$416 million reported for all of 2020. The frequency has also gone up, with 658 ransomware-related suspicious incidents being reported during the first six months of 2021, representing a 30% increase from the total reports filed for 2020.

Costs associated with cyber attacks also are rising. According to the IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report, the average data breach costs rose from US$3.86 million to US$4.24 million in 2021.

All of these factors have led to a substantial increase in cyber insurance pricing across the world. An analysis by Marsh shows US cyber insurance pricing increased 96% year-over-year during the third quarter of 2021, which also represented a 40 percentage point increase from the second quarter of the year.

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Image 1: US insurance market pricing change – overall commercial vs cyber insurance segments

US cyber insurance market provides significant growth opportunities

Direct premiums for US-domiciled insurers stood at US$2.75 billion in 2020 – less than 1% of the overall direct written premium in the US property and casualty (P&C) insurance market – reflecting the runaway growth in cyber insurance. This segment has also grown at a decent pace over the last five years, registering a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.3% during that period.

Standalone cyber insurance policies are gaining prominence and have seen faster adoption than packaged policies sold as add-ons to other insurance products/policies. This can be attributed to enterprises’ need for broader coverage and a better understanding of policy terms and costs.

While most carriers have mainly serviced corporate clients, they are now starting to focus on the retail segment by providing standalone cyber insurance products that have typically been sold as add-ons to homeowners insurance. For example, Chubb recently launched Blink, a new personal cyber protection offering that covers expenses related to identity theft, fraudulent wire transfer, cyberbullying, and ransomware extortion.

Insurers are also offering joint go-to-market (GTM) products to provide comprehensive cyber risk management solutions to enterprises. In 2021, Allianz and Munich Re partnered with Google Cloud to launch a solution for Google Cloud customers that combines the risk-transfer expertise of Allianz and Munich Re with Google’s security capabilities to provide clients tailored coverage.

Advent of insurtechs in the cyber insurance market segment

The insurtech space has recently witnessed increased activity where most newcomers are catering to specific segments like small to medium enterprises. Insurtechs are leveraging their tech capabilities to make the underwriting process more streamlined and automated while incumbents continue to face legacy issues.

However, insurtechs lack the capital resources of their traditional counterparts and hence are forming alliances with traditional insurers to combine their respective capabilities. Some insurtechs are also offering coverage on behalf of incumbents through the Managing General Agent (MGA) model.

  • Cowbell Cyber, a full-stack insurer providing cyber coverage to SMEs, raised US$100 million this March to expand its go-to-market channels and increase investments in data science, underwriting, risk engineering, and claims management
  • At-Bay, a cyber insurtech MGA, announced a partnership in September 2021 with Microsoft to offer data-driven cyber insurance coverage to Microsoft 365 customers

Challenges for insurers in a hardening cyber market

While cyber insurers have experienced significant top-line growth, profitability remains a major concern as payouts have outstripped premium growth. The increased payouts have led to higher loss ratios. The loss ratio for US cyber insurers increased from a 42% average during 2015-19 to 73% by 2020. Insurers are responding by narrowing the cyber coverage scope and limiting cyber capacity. They also are imposing sublimits for ransomware coverage and adding coinsurance requirements to cyber policies.

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Image 2: Insurers narrowing cyber coverage scope and limiting cyber capacity

How can cyber insurers benefit from BPS partnerships?

Partnering with Business Process Services (BPS) providers can help cyber insurers in the following ways:

Providing underwriting talent: As the adoption of cyber insurance grows, it will also lead to higher volumes for carriers. Service providers can provide support by standardizing parts of the underwriting process to enable carriers to handle increased work volumes. This can include deploying straight-through processing by standardizing the intake process and applying rule-based engines for low-premium policies to free up time for underwriters to focus on larger policies. They can also take over non-core pre- and post-underwriting work and help create scalable Centers of Excellence (CoEs) at profitable locations.

 Enabling technology: As carriers tighten their underwriting requirements with an increased focus on analyzing enterprises’ history of ransomware incidents and cyber breaches, they will heavily rely on third-party tools and public data sources to evaluate the insureds’ level of risk. This provides an opportunity for service providers to work with carriers to provide such tools and applications to help them assess risks associated with a particular firm.

Ensuring compliance: Amid the ever-evolving cyber threat landscape, governments and regulators across the globe are introducing new cybersecurity-focused legislation. The US Congress passed a new cybersecurity law in March mandating critical infrastructure entities to report cybersecurity incidents and ransomware payments to the relevant authority within 72 and 24 hours, respectively. Service providers can support carriers on various compliance-related matters. While some providers have compliance-specific expertise in licensing and filings, others have dedicated teams for compliance review and obligations. Third-party BPS providers can leverage these resources and work with carriers to ensure compliance.

Partnerships critical to the cyber insurance market’s future

As carriers seek growth in the cyber insurance market, they will need to strike the right balance to also achieve profitability. At the same time, service providers will have to keep up with the evolving market and appropriately build their cyber capabilities.

By working together, carriers and service providers can address some of the current market challenges and capitalize on the opportunities in the cyber insurance space to achieve sustainable growth.

For more information, please read our comprehensive assessment of the players in the P&C Insurance BPS segment, Property and Casualty (P&C) Insurance BPS – Service Provider Landscape with PEAK Matrix Assessment 2022.

To discuss opportunities in the cyber insurance market, please reach out to Somya Bhadola at [email protected] and Dinesh Singh Udawat at [email protected] or contact us.

 

Top Employers for Tech Talent – Who is Winning the Tech Talent War? | LinkedIn Live

LINKEDIN LIVE

Top Employers for Tech Talent – Who is Winning the Tech Talent War?

View the event on LinkedIn, which was delivered live on May 18, 2022.

The expectations of today’s technology workforce have changed and continue to evolve. As a result, employers are needing to focus on creating compelling employee value propositions, especially in light of the Great Resignation and the persistent demand for talent required by digital growth. 💥

📣Join this LinkedIn Live event to hear our analysis of the top US employers across key industries for tech talent and explore the reasons that set best-in-class firms apart. This analysis will focus specifically on the tech workforce – a first of its kind in the market.

Karl Sprules, Head of Global Technology and Operations, AllianceBernstein, will be joining the event to discuss the culture and environment that AllianceBernstein has cultivated to recruit and retain tech talent, which has earned them the No. 1 spot on the Financial Services ranking.

Our experts will also share critical insights into what today’s tech workforce truly wants, and what potential employers could be overlooking.

What questions will the event answer for the participants?
✔️Who are the best employers of tech talent among the largest US firms?
✔️What makes the best employers stand out?
✔️What helps attract and drive away high-potential tech talent?

Meet the Speakers

KarlSprules
Head of Global Technology and Operations
AllianceBernstein

Hiring Advice in Light of Potential Recession

Although companies are experiencing growth now, the signs are clear that a US recession is coming and likely will be upon us within a year. The Fed is starting to take measures to reduce liquidity and raise interest rates. Typically, recessions cause companies to pivot from their growth agendas into cost-saving agendas – including layoffs of staff. But layoffs would be a mistaken approach to a recession this time around. This blog shares my advice for handling the labor situation in the recession we now face.

Read more in my blog on Forbes

Strategies to Expand Labor Pools Today and in a Recession | Blog

In today’s hot labor market, with a difficult gap between talent demand and available resources, companies must try to widen the area where they can recruit workers, and hunt for labor pools in new, smaller markets. Google and other tech companies are reaching out to labor markets on the West Coast and in small markets in remote cities. FedEx and other large companies are investing in expensive TV ads to reach workers in non-traditional labor pools. However, the signs are clear that a recession will be upon us in months, and the new strategies for expanding a labor pool often have long run times. What are the best approaches to expand labor pools now?

Read more in my blog on Forbes

5 Steps to Managing High Outsourcing Spend | GSA On-demand Webinar

According to Everest Group, 43% of service providers are actively seeking to increase prices on existing contracts. Globally, there has been an average of a 6% increase in price requested by service providers.

Join Ricky Sundrani, Vice President at Everest Group, in this webinar hosted by GSA to explore:

  • What are the increased pricing trends across technology and business services
  • What does the future of pricing look like
  • How to best address inflation in contracts
  • How to best negotiate price increases
  • How can we ensure that price increases are reaching the employees of service providers
  • Should there be industry standard guidelines on how to approach this subject

Watch Now

When

Presented live on Thursday, April 21, 2022

Presenters

Ricky Sundrani
Vice President, Everest Group

Mark Crichard
Partner – Commercial, Technology and Outsourcing, RPC

Kerry Hallard
CEO of the GSA

Watch Now

9 Outsourcing Myths Debunked | In the News

The global IT services industry has emerged from two-plus years of a global pandemic to establish itself as even more vital to the success of enterprise IT organizations. As corporate IT looks to manage unrelenting demand for technology-enabled change in a challenging talent environment, outsourcing partnerships have proved pivotal.

“Companies are finding it exceedingly hard to find skilled talent especially in the US and Europe, and consequently outsourcing (and offshoring) are becoming important for companies to access talent in labor markets such as India,” says Jimit Arora, Partner at Everest Group.

Read more in CIO

Record Net Employee Addition by TCS, Accenture in Last One Year | In the NEws

Information technology giants Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Accenture reported record net employee addition in the last one year with over a lakh increase in headcount by each, indicating strong demand and business momentum in the coming quarters. Employee addition is one of the key measures indicating the business outlook.

According to Yugal Joshi, Partner at Everest Group, a global research firm, hiring is indeed a strong indicator of demand. However, service providers do not reveal their hiring trends globally, but are generally focused on India.

Read more in The Hindu Business Line

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