The Expert Podcast

So here is a checklist of items to take care of prior to making an application for cyber liability insurance.

Step one is for your business to get a copy of your corporate documents, such as your corporate charter with the Secretary of State, or whatever the filing document is you have. This is important because you want to make sure you have the exact legal name that’s on your corporate paperwork. Also, look up any DBAs (Doing Business As) if you have a website with a website address, a trade name, or a product name. You want to get all those identified, along with your EIN (Employer Identification Number), your tax identification number, because your insurance policy is going to be listed in the exact name of your corporation. If something is entered incorrectly, it may not give you the proper coverage you need.

Step two is to make an inventory of all of the known technical exposures. This means making an inventory list of any servers you have, any routers, and any Wi-Fi networks you have. The reason for this is that in order to get the best rate on cyber liability insurance, the insurance company is going to look at that list and make sure that all those devices have the proper security on them.

Step three is to take a look at the procedures you have documented for cyber defense. For example, do you have passwords and protocols for your employees? Do you have two-factor authentication? Do you have procedures for different employees to have different logins to access certain records? For instance, if your HR department can see all of the private employee information, that’s one thing. But if your sales department can also see all of your employee personal information, that may not be good. So, make sure you have a differentiation of access for different parties.

Step four, and this is extremely important, is to look at all of the interactions externally that you have. This means checking if there are any connections from vendors you have or clients where they can log in and access your system. Do you log in and access a vendor system to place orders, arrange inventory, etc.?

Step five is to make a list of all of the third-party platforms that you use. Do you have a CRM (Customer Relationship Management system)? Do you have an inventory management system? Any platforms you have, even things like Zoom, Google Docs, or your payroll system, are third-party apps that you use to run your business. Make an inventory of those, as each one will have its own security system.

Now, when you make the application, if you have all of this documented, it’s going to give you a certain score with your cyber liability insurance provider. The more documentation you have showing that you are aware of your IT exposure, the better. This will help you access more markets. Your insurance broker or agent will be able to place you with different markets for that insurance policy. The more technologically documented you are, the more access you’ll have to those markets and potentially lower premium amounts.

That’s your checklist for beginning the process of a cyber liability insurance application. We recommend that you don’t even start the application until you’ve put all those things together. That way, when the application is being entered, if you need any of that information, you’ll have it on hand. Or if the application requires you to upload any documents or put information in a spreadsheet, you’ll have it ready to go.

If you have any questions about cyber liability insurance, you can reach us on our website at riskcoverage.com.