Issued 23rd January 2019. Insurance Ireland has held a roundtable event on cybersecurity to increase awareness of official, regulatory and industry positions on a growing threat for organisations of all sizes.

The growing incidences of cyber-attacks faced by governments, organisations and civil societies across the world highlights the importance of increasing awareness of cyber threats and developing risk mitigation strategies. As part of the industry response, Insurance Ireland held a roundtable on the issue with Sean Kelly MEP, James Caffrey, Policy Officer at the European Commission DG CNECT, Cybersecurity Technology & Capacity Building and industry expert Marko Hartwig, EMEA Chief Information Security Officer at Zurich.

Kevin Thompson, CEO of Insurance Ireland stated, “Cyber risks present new challenges for insurers as they are constantly evolving and can rapidly spread worldwide. Similarly, organisations can find it hard to accurately assess their cybersecurity exposure or how to mitigate known risks. This roundtable sought to increase understanding between policymakers and industry as well as to identify policy solutions.

“While the insurance industry is responding by offering insurance solutions that reflect considerations such as an organisation’s size, type, sector and level of digitalisation, much more needs to be done to build resilience to these threats. Cyber insurance is not yet widespread in Europe whereas the US accounts for approximately 80-90% of the global customer market for cyber.

“Insurers are implementing initiatives in this area to complement the regulatory and institutional framework, such as the development of training programmes for specific skills and the creation of a tool-kit to prevent, react and answer cyber threats appropriately. These initiatives need a regulatory and policy framework to allow the industry response to evolve to conduct better risk assessments and offer more tailored solutions.

Kevin concluded, “This was a very engaging conversation on the official, regulatory and industry positions on this issue, which is growing in importance. We look forward to further industry initiatives in this area and opportunities to work with all stakeholders to increase awareness of cyber-related threats and how to respond to them.”