Cyberattacks will no longer be insurable, warns Mario Greco, chief executive of Zurich Insurance. Their multiplication no longer meets the definition of a “sudden and unpredictable” event, said insurance broker Eric Henchoz on Tuesday in the RTS Forum program.
In recent years, managers of major insurance companies have warned of the risks that pandemics and climate change pose to insurance coverage.
“What will not be insurable is cyber,” said Zurich Insurance Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mario Greco, in an interview with the Financial Times. “What are the consequences if someone takes control of vital parts of the infrastructure?” danger to human lives.
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“The standard definition of insurance – taking charge of a sudden and unpredictable event – is undermined by cyberattacks. Because they happen every day and to everyone”, analyzes Eric Henchoz, director at Perennial SA, Tuesday in the broadcast of the RTS Forum.
“Less and less risk”
The dramatic increase in cyber damage in recent years has therefore prompted insurers to take immediate measures to limit their risks. Some have not only raised prices, but also tailored policies so that customers have to withhold more losses.
“Insurers take less and less risk. And I understand them,” says Eric Henchoz. Before adding: “For an SME, there are still insurance policies at relatively modest prices: 1,000 or 2,000 francs. But a cyberattack, between damage to third parties, to the installation through crisis management, is a hundred times more in terms of compensation”.
Mario Greco underlined that there are limits to what the private sector can bear in terms of losses linked to cyberattacks. It therefore calls on governments to “create private-public systems to manage systemic cyber risks that cannot be quantified, similar to those that exist in some countries for earthquakes or terrorist attacks”.
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