Cyber endorsements attached to other business insurance rarely provide adequate protection for accounting firms. They lack the breadth of coverage and higher liability limits found in dedicated cyber policies, known as “standalone” coverage.
A standalone cyber insurance policy responds to a wider variety of threats:
- First-party attacks – those directly on your firm’s network.
- Third-party attacks – those that breach a company’s network through another party, such as a client or vendor.
They also provide the higher limits necessary to handle an incident effectively.
A typical standalone cyber insurance policy provides coverage in four key areas:
Incident Response: This covers the costs associated with responding to a cyber incident, such as forensic investigations, data recovery, legal counsel, notification costs, and public relations efforts.
Business Interruption: This helps businesses recover financial losses resulting from a cyber incident that disrupts their normal operations, such as a ransomware attack that shuts down critical systems or a data breach that leads to downtime.
Cybercrime: This coverage protects businesses from financial losses resulting from various forms of cybercrime, such as social engineering scams, fraudulent wire transfers, funds transfer fraud, and extortion.
Privacy Liability: This helps businesses cover the costs associated with legal fees, settlements, and damages resulting from a data breach or other privacy-related incidents that expose sensitive customer or employee information.
