When you run a small business, you face many physical risks, like property damage and injuries. But your business also faces risks that come from using technology. These include everything from data breaches to hacking.
To protect against those risks, many businesses add cyber insurance to their business insurance policies. Cyber insurance can offer broad coverages to help protect businesses from various technology-related risks. At The Hartford, we offer two different cyber insurance policies: cyber liability insurance and data breach insurance.
Data breach insurance helps your business respond to breaches and can offer enough protection for small business owners. Cyber liability insurance is typically meant for larger businesses and offers more coverage to help prepare for, respond to and recover from cyberattacks.
Why Businesses Need Cyber Liability Insurance or Data Breach Coverage
Hackers can target personally identifiable information (PII) or personal health information (PHI) you keep on your business’ computers. That’s why it’s important to protect your business with data breach or cyber liability insurance, helping you respond quickly after a data breach or cyberattack. These coverages can help if:
- Your business’ computers get a virus that exposes private, sensitive information.
- Customers or patients sue after your business loses PII or PHI.
- You’re faced with high public relations costs to help protect your business’ reputation after a data breach.
Ask yourself these questions to see if your business needs data breach or cyber liability insurance:
- Do we collect, store, send or receive PII or PHI?
- Do we work in an industry with rules about customer information, such as healthcare, education or finance?
- What would we do if we faced a cyberattack today?
What Is the Difference Between Cyber Liability and Data Breach Insurance?
It’s always important to know what business insurance covers. This is especially true for cyber insurance. Our data breach insurance and cyber liability insurance are two different policies.
What Is Data Breach Insurance?
This insurance helps you respond to a breach if PII or PHI gets lost or stolen, whether it’s from a hacker breaking into your network, or an employee accidentally leaving their laptop at a restaurant.
If your small business is the victim of a breach, data breach coverage can help pay to:
- Notify affected customers, patients or employees
- Hire a public relations firm
- Offer credit monitoring services to data breach victims
For extra protection, we can also help you customize your data breach policy. Some coverages you can add include:
Business income and extra expense coverage to help replace lost income if you can’t run your business because of a data breach.
Prior acts coverage to help cover claims related to a breach that happened before your policy’s effective date.
Extortion Coverage, which helps cover the amount you paid if someone takes your business’ data and demands a ransom.
What Is Cyber Liability Insurance?
Cyber liability insurance is recommended for larger businesses. It helps cover financial losses due to cyberattacks or other tech-related risks, as well as privacy investigations or lawsuits following an attack. For example, if a hacker locks your computers, starts deleting files and demands a ransom, this insurance can help you respond to the attack and help your business recover lost files and income.
If your large business is the victim of a cyberattack, cyber liability insurance can help cover:
- Legal services to help you meet state and federal regulations
- Notification expenses to alert affected customers that their personal information was compromised
- Extortion paid to recover locked files in a ransomware attack
- Lost income from a network outage
- Lawsuits related to customer or employee privacy and security
- Regulatory fines from state and federal agencies
How Much Does Cyber Insurance Cost?
Different factors can impact your business insurance cost. So, your cyber insurance costs will likely be different than another business’. Your data breach or cyber liability cost can depend on your:
- Number of customers, clients or patients
- Type of sensitive data and information you store
- Revenue
- Claims history