New product from former U.S. Homeland Security head offers small and medium businesses cyber coverage

Guy Carpenter has has announced the launch of a new cyber privacy and network protection offering for small- and medium-sized companies.

The offering is provided by Ridge Insurance Solutions Company, a new Lloyd’s Managing Agency led by Tom Ridge, the first United States Secretary of Homeland Security and the 43rd governor of Pennsylvania, as chairman.

It is underwritten by five leading Lloyd’s syndicates in the cyber arena: Brit, AEGIS London and Novae as lead underwriters, and Barbican Insurance Group and ACE.

The product offers three components:

• An initial on-site assessment of existing cybersecurity capabilities, conducted by the Ridge assessment team, to expose any potential system vulnerabilities and provide recommendations to reduce cyber exposures. Compliance with the recommendations will directly affect the premiums charged for the insurance component of the solution, according to Guy Carpenter.
• A comprehensive cyber privacy and network protection insurance policy that includes: business interruption coverage; privacy and security liability; crisis and “event” management costs; information assets and cyber extortion. The policy provides coverage on a worldwide basis with a capacity limit of $50 million.
• Remediation services in the event of a cyber breach. The offering “will deliver a rapid and robust response to any form of cyber intrusion, quickly isolating the intruder, shoring up the breach and limiting the business impact,” according to Guy Carpenter.

“Insurance need not be just a ‘policy’ written by an agent, but a true focal point for assessing, identifying and correcting the impact of cyber risk on your business,” Ridge commented in a statement. “This is not just about insurance, but helping and incentivizing companies to manage their cyber operations more effectively. Partnering with some of the leading cyber syndicates in the Lloyd’s market has helped elevate the standing of our solution well above that of any standard cyber product.”

“We believe that much of the narrative surrounding cyber risk is too narrowly focused on compliance and does not adequately address the concerns of small- and medium-sized companies,” Rick Welsh, head of cyber insurance at AEGIS London added. 

“We are delighted to be partnering with Ridge because we feel they understand that holisticrisk management and incident response should be central to cyber insurance. For many of our clients globally the primary focus is business continuity and we know that Ridge shares that philosophy.”