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How Cyber-Insurance Market Shifts Are Changing Security Requirements and Spending

Cyber-insurance pricing has eased in parts of the market even as claims and outage risks remain material. Learn how underwriting changes affect security controls, budgets, policy terms and resilience planning.
From TheFinanceBase Team6 min to read

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Cyber insurance is easier to find and often less expensive than it was during the post-ransomware hard market, but that does not mean cyber risk has declined. Global premiums approached $15 billion in 2024 while U.S. insurers handled nearly 50,000 claims, almost 40% more than the previous year. For buyers, the practical change is that insurers have more appetite in some segments, yet they continue to scrutinize security controls, resilience, third-party dependencies and the accuracy of application answers.

What is happening in the cyber-insurance market?

The market is softer overall than during the sharp tightening that followed the COVID-era ransomware surge. “Softer” generally means more competition, lower quoted rates in some accounts, broader terms or higher available limits. It does not mean every organization will receive cheaper coverage or that insurers view cyber losses as solved.

Measure Reported result How to interpret it
Global cyber-insurance premiums, 2024 Nearly $15 billion NAIC reported 7% growth from 2023, with most growth outside the United States.
U.S. direct written premium including alien surplus lines, 2024 About $9.14 billion Down about 7% from 2023; this is a different measure from U.S.-domiciled insurer premium.
U.S.-domiciled insurer premium, 2024 $7.08 billion Down from $7.25 billion in 2023.
U.S. cyber claims, 2024 Nearly 50,000 Almost 40% more than the prior year, showing that softer pricing is not proof of falling losses.
Average U.S. cyber-rate movement, Q4 2024 Down 5% NAIC described this as the first quarterly decline after seven years of increases.

The figures above come from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ 2025 report, whose market figures cover 2024. Aon’s broker-market report for Q4 2025 also described price decreases, broader coverage and increased limits overall, while noting continuing ransomware and business-interruption losses. Aon said almost one-fifth of its clients bought additional cyber limits during 2025. It reported more difficult conditions for healthcare, airlines and financial institutions, and moderated reductions in some markets.

Your result can differ materially because insurers price by sector, geography, revenue, controls, limits, retention, claims history and perceived concentration risk. A market report is not an individual quote or a coverage determination.

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Why cheaper or broader cover does not mean lower cyber risk

Premiums are the price of transferring a portion of financial risk; they are not a measurement of how secure an organization is. Claims can rise while rates fall when insurer capacity, competition, reinsurance conditions or underwriting models change. The 2024 combination of declining U.S. rates and sharply higher claim counts illustrates why a lower premium should not be used as evidence that ransomware, outages or litigation have become less threatening.

Losses now include more than malicious encryption. NAIC reporting covers ransomware, business interruption, class-action litigation and regulatory investigations. It also highlights incidents driven by suppliers and interconnected technology, including non-malicious outages such as the July 2024 CrowdStrike event. A security program therefore has to address availability and dependency risk, not only malware prevention.

How underwriting changes security spending

During the post-COVID ransomware surge, insurers raised rates, increased deductibles and added sublimits. Underwriting has since become more evidence-based rather than abandoning control checks. NAIC reported that companies’ investments in cybersecurity controls were viewed favorably by underwriters, but that observation is not a guaranteed discount for any particular product or control.

Application accuracy is a security task

Applications commonly ask whether controls exist, are enforced and are monitored. Treat each answer as an operational assertion. Keep inventories, configuration records, test results, incident logs and policy approvals that support the response. If a control applies only to certain systems or users, describe that scope rather than answering as though it is universal.

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Maintaining controls can affect coverage

Some policies include a “failure to maintain security” or “failure to follow” exclusion. Depending on the wording and facts, it can restrict coverage for a claim tied to failure to maintain minimum or adequate security standards. It is not universal. Review the actual policy, endorsements, warranties and application representations with a broker and coverage counsel, and compare them with what the security team can consistently deliver.

Budget for resilience, not just prevention

Underwriting questions increasingly make response and recovery financially visible. Spending may need to cover tested backups, recovery environments, incident-response retainers, crisis communications, business-continuity exercises, identity monitoring and supplier contingencies. Insurance can fund some covered costs after an incident; it cannot restore an unavailable service by itself.

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Controls that matter—and what they do not guarantee

CISA’s Cross-Sector Cybersecurity Performance Goals are a voluntary baseline organized around governance, identify, protect, detect, respond and recover. They are a useful planning framework, not an insurance rulebook. A carrier may request different controls, apply different thresholds or accept compensating measures.

Phishing-resistant multifactor authentication

CISA ranks hardware-based phishing-resistant MFA, including FIDO/WebAuthn or PKI, as the strongest option in its listed MFA methods. App-based tokens are a fallback when hardware-based MFA is unavailable; SMS or voice should be reserved for cases where stronger methods are unavailable. A FIDO2 security key is one physical implementation, but compatibility with your identity provider, privileged accounts and recovery process must be verified.

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No evidence establishes that all insurers require security keys or that purchasing one automatically earns a premium credit. The underwriting value comes from a properly deployed, enforced and maintained control—not from owning a device.

Identity, backup and recovery controls

  • Apply MFA and least privilege to administrative, remote-access and other high-impact accounts.
  • Maintain tested, protected backups and document recovery time and recovery point objectives.
  • Centralize logging and establish detection and escalation procedures.
  • Exercise incident response, legal notification and business-continuity plans.
  • Map critical suppliers, software dependencies and outage workarounds.
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How to evaluate a policy when the market is soft

Do not select a policy on premium alone. Compare the terms that determine whether a loss is actually transferable.

Review item Questions to ask
Covered events Are ransomware, business interruption, system failure, privacy liability, regulatory investigations and supplier incidents covered, and under what definitions?
Limits and sublimits What is the aggregate limit, and are restoration, extortion, business interruption, forensic work or notification subject to lower sublimits?
Retention or deductible How much must the organization fund before coverage responds, and does the amount differ by event type?
Exclusions How do failure-to-maintain-security, war, infrastructure outage and unencrypted-data exclusions apply?
Response services Which breach counsel, forensic firms, negotiators and communications providers are available, and must the insurer approve their appointment?
Representations and warranties Which application statements become policy conditions, and can the organization prove they remain true?
Layering How do primary and excess policies attach, and are there gaps between them?

Terms can vary substantially by sector and geography. Healthcare, airlines and financial institutions may encounter tighter appetite even when the broader market is competitive. A broker can obtain alternatives, but only the issued wording controls coverage.

What changed over the longer term?

The U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that cyber-insurance take-up among one global broker’s clients rose from 26% in 2016 to 47% in 2020. Its 2021 report also described rising premiums, lower limits in some high-risk sectors and difficulty pricing cyber risk because historical loss data was limited and policy definitions were inconsistent. Those figures explain why underwriting has evolved; they are historical, broker-specific data, not current market shares or prices.

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A practical plan for security and insurance teams

  1. Map the risk transfer. List critical systems, suppliers, likely interruption costs and regulatory exposures before requesting limits.
  2. Reconcile the application. Have security, IT, legal, finance and the broker review every control representation together.
  3. Close high-impact gaps. Prioritize phishing-resistant MFA for sensitive access, privileged-account controls, tested backups, logging and response readiness.
  4. Test recovery and dependencies. Run exercises that include a cloud or supplier outage, not only a ransomware scenario.
  5. Read the final wording. Check definitions, sublimits, retentions, exclusions, panel-provider rules and any security-maintenance condition.
  6. Reassess after change. Revisit representations when systems, suppliers, ownership, geography or security architecture changes.

Bottom line for business and risk leaders

Cyber insurance is becoming a more flexible component of risk financing, not a substitute for cybersecurity. Softer rates and broader options can improve a buyer’s negotiating position, while rising claims and complex third-party losses keep underwriting demanding. The strongest strategy is to treat insurance as one layer in a program that prevents compromise, limits blast radius, detects incidents, restores operations and documents the controls represented to the carrier.

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