Beazley, Munich Re cover cyber risk up to $100 million

Beazley plc announced Monday it has partnered with Munich Re’s corporate insurance partner to offer tailored cyber insurance.

The products will provide coverage of up to US$100 million or 100 million euros, stated Beazley, which manages six syndicates in the Lloyd’s market.

Coverage can be tailored to “include elements” for risks such as hacking or malware attacks, distributed denial of service attacks, cyber extortion and property damage and bodily injury arising from cyber attacks.

“The impact of an attack on the smooth functioning of plant and machinery and the safety of employees, with the increasing interconnectivity of systems, is becoming more and more severe,” Beazley stated in a release.

Beazley added that “half” of all major companies in the United States “sustained a denial of service attack to their websites last year and more than 10% of these attacks interrupted the companies’ web-based service capabilities.”

Beazley and Munich Re “have already bound insurance for multinational clients” seeking protection from cyber risks, the companies stated.

“Rapidly flowing data is the lifeblood of modern business,” stated Mike Donovan, Beazley’s focus group leader for technology, media and business services, in the release. “When that data ceases to flow, or is siphoned off, the costs for large interconnected enterprises can be huge. We can now provide the kind of robust and flexible protection that large businesses need at a time when cyber threats are proliferating worldwide.”

Beazley’s existing information security and privacy coverage is aimed at retail, healthcare and financial institutions. It includes privacy liability, third-party coverage for computer information security breaches, electronic media liability and first-party coverage for losses from network security breaches.