At NN Group, we see our customers as the starting point of everything we do. In our modern digital society, cyber attacks are happening regularly and can have major consequences for both companies and consumers. To help SMEs with preventing and recovering from a cyber attack, Nationale-Nederlanden in the Netherlands offers both a cyber scan and cyber insurance. Recently we launched a campaign to make advisors and entrepreneurs more aware of the risks, and as part of this we asked five questions about cyber insurance in the Netherlands to Joeri Jedeloo, Senior Manager Product Management, Pricing & Expertise at Netherlands Non-Life.
What was the reason for Nationale-Nederlanden to offer cyber insurance?
‘Cyber attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated. This can represent a challenge for an SME, who often do not have the resources of a large corporate to protect themselves against this relatively new and difficult theme. Considering our role in society, we want to respond to this by sharing our knowledge and data with our advisors. The goal is to help the advisor so that they can point out the risks to their clients, advise them on prevention and protect them against the consequences of a cyber attack.’
How did this proposition come about and scale up?
‘We actually have two propositions. The first is focused on cybersecurity prevention through Perfect Day, an initiative of Nationale-Nederlanden. In response to developments in the cyber market, this proposition was developed by NN's central innovation team, the Strategic Transformation Office. They explore and create new concepts and services for our customers. Perfect Day makes an inventory of the cyber risks of a company through a scan and continuous monitoring. After that, the entrepreneur receives continuous guidance to help them get and keep the security in order.
‘In addition to cyber security prevention, we also offer cyber insurance. This insurance protects SMEs against the high costs that can arise in all sorts of cyber attacks, such as a ransomware attack. Cyber insurance covers the costs that follow an attack, such as legal costs, fines, hardware replacements and others. In addition, we actively assist the company if an attack occurs. To make this possible, we work together with Hiscox. Hiscox is an international niche insurer that specialises in cyber insurance, among other things.’
Why do we partner with Hiscox and Perfect Day?
‘Perfect Day has several cyber specialists who can guide and serve advisors and customers to arrange the basic hygiene for cyber, thus supporting prevention. Offering insurance requires deep expertise of the subject in order to make a good assessment of the risk. That is why we work together with Hiscox for cyber insurance, who are also the risk bearer.
‘The combination of these two components and collaborations makes our proposition strong. Prevention is always better than cure, but it is still nice to know that you can count on your insurer if things do go wrong.’
What does the current cyber campaign in the Netherlands focus on?
‘The campaign focuses mainly on our advisor and their business clients. Only one in eight companies has digital security in order, and two thirds of cyber attacks are aimed at SMEs. That's why awareness is super important. The advisor plays an important role in making the entrepreneur more cyber-aware: where should an SME and a self-employed person start protecting the company? From experience we know that the intermediary wants more substantive knowledge about the coverage and conditions. The focus of the campaign is therefore on education about cyber risks and on our total solution, namely prevention and insurance. We call this the security package Security Pakket.’
How do you see the future of the cyber insurance market?
‘The market is growing enormously and in the time to come it is expected that the growth per year will be 20-30%. The call for good services and insurance will only increase. As a result, I expect that there will be more and more parties becoming active in this. The increasing parties will also likely to lead to more standardisation in cyber services and insurance.
‘At the same time, it is also an exciting market, especially when it comes to insuring risks. The developments are incredibly fast and, with that, the risks are also increasing. I think that in the future insurers will only proceed to insurance if there will also be a good scan of the risks of the company in advance. That is why I am pleased that we already have a proposition for this.’
