H/T to RiskAnalytics for the link to this interesting analysis of the growing cyber-risk insurance market on CIO Dive:

A fast-growing market

Currently, first-party insurance products cover losses associated with data destruction, denial of service attacks, theft and extortion. In addition, some insurers also cover incident response and remediation, crisis management, forensic investigations, data restoration and business interruption.

Both sides of the cybersecurity insurance market—businesses seeking policies and the insurance companies that sell them—are expanding rapidly, according to David Burg, global and U.S. cybersecurity leader at PwC. In fact, cybersecurity insurance is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the insurance industry.

“In part, this is because businesses understand that they can’t stop increasingly frequent and sophisticated cyberattacks, so they are purchasing insurance as a way to help mitigate the financial impact,” said Burg. “Many see cybersecurity insurance as a new tool to help manage corporate risks.”

A report last year from PwC forecast that the global cybersecurity insurance market will hit $7.5 billion in annual sales by 2020, up from $2.5 billion in 2015. And more companies appear to be buying cyber insurance.

PwC’s annual Global State of Information Security Survey showed solid year-over-year growth in the number of companies that purchased cybersecurity insurance. In 2015, for instance, 59% of global respondents said they had cybersecurity insurance—up from 45% just two years ago.

Full article at: http://www.ciodive.com/news/2016-could-be-the-year-of-cyber-insurance/415328/