You already know that some policies, such as general liability, can benefit your business no matter the size, industry, or niche. In the technology-reliant world of today, however, cyber liability insurance is becoming almost as ubiquitous as general liability.
Even for small businesses.
But can a business be too small to worry about cyber breaches, hacks, or attacks?
Is Your Business Too Small for Cyber Liability Coverage?
Are you too small for cyber liability coverage?
It depends on whether or not you can answer yes to any of the following questions:
Is Your Business Online?
Do you have an online presence for your business? If you’ve got a website, your business can get hacked.
“Why would anyone want to hack my business website?”
First, hacks aren’t always personal. In fact, they rarely are.
Hackers may be targeting your website in order to attack other websites or spam the internet. More than ⅓ of all websites around the world are powered by Wordpress, which means your Wordpress site could be highly desirable to hackers as a gateway to the other 75 million Wordpress websites out there.
Does Your Business Use Computers?
Desktops, laptops, tablets, even smartphones… if you use hardware, your business is at risk for a hack.
Imagine you’re running a few business errands throughout the day. You’ve got to drop off a few packages for shipping, pick up some products, and restock office supplies. It’s a hectic day with lots of stops and by the time you get back to your home-office you realize…
Your tablet is missing.
Maybe you left it at the counter at at the office supply place. Maybe it fell out of your car at the shipping store. Maybe you left your car unlocked when you ran into the coffee shop and someone swiped it out of your car. Regardless, it’s gone.
Employee laptops get stolen. Tablets and smartphones get lost. Thieves can break into your home, office, warehouse, or work truck and steal laptops or desktop computers. And once that happens, all of your data, passwords, and customer information can end up in the wrong hands.
Do You Take Credit Card Payments From Customers?
Whether you’re swiping credit cards on your tablet or smartphone or have a sophisticated POS system installed in dozens of retail locations across multiple states, protecting that information is crucial.
Even with the adoption of chip technology to better protect customers, POS (point-of-sale) attacks are still occurring.
According to the 2018 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, 90% of all breaches in the hospitality industry involved POS intrusions.
From remote attacks against POS terminals to physical implementation of payment-card skimmers on gas pumps terminals and ATMs, businesses still need to worry about protecting their customers’ credit and debit card information.
Do You Use Software or Apps for Your Business?
How many services do you login to every day for your business?
From your businesses Facebook page to the back-end of your website to sales, marketing, accounting and customer management software tools, there are probably a number of software platforms you use to operate your business.
If you’re using software applications and mobile applications, you’ve got an entry point to your own network and data that hackers can exploit.
Do You Collect and Save Customer Information?
Your customers trust you. When they give you their names, home addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers, they’re giving you valuable information about themselves.
If they give you financial information in the forms of credit/ debit card numbers or bank account numbers, they’re trusting you to keep that information secure.
All it takes is one hack, breach, or malware attack and every bit of sensitive information that you’ve been carefully trusted with could be breached.
Failing to protect customer information could lead to expensive legal ramifications such as lawsuits for negligence or breach of contract.
How Cyber Liability Protects Small Businesses
Are you too small to worry about hacks, breaches, and cyber attacks?
No.
Your business is never too small to benefit from cyber liability protection.
Small businesses are becoming increasingly attractive targets to hackers both here in the US and across the globe. And the impact of an attack can be absolutely devastating for your business.
47% of small businesses suffered at least one cyber attack in the previous 12 months, according to the 2018 Hiscox Small Business Cyber Risk report.
Small businesses estimated their average cost for incidents in the last 12 months to be $34,604. Among large companies (more than 1,000 employees), the annual average cost of cyber crime in 2018 was $1.05 million.
Do you have tens of thousands of dollars (or even a cool million) to spend on the aftermath of a cyber attack?
Cyber liability insurance is designed to protect you - and your customers - in the event of a cyber attack or breach. A cyber policy is designed to cover privacy, data and network exposures such as sensitive client or employee information.
Cyber liability typically covers:
- First-party and third party liabilities resulting from a data breach event
- Defense cost for claims such as a statutory violation, regulatory investigation, negligence or breach of contract
- Coverage for defense costs, judgement, award or settlements,
- Coverage for negligence and breach of contract claims
- Coverage for fines, penalties and assessments ensuing from the breach of a merchant services agreement
When nearly half of all small businesses have been a victim of a cyber attack in the last year, it’s clear that cyber liability insurance could be a valuable addition to your small business insurance protection. Laptops get lost, emails get phished, and malware attacks happen every single day. Ask your insurance provider today how you can protect your small business with cyber liability insurance.