According to CISA, "Cybersecurity insurance is designed to mitigate losses from a variety of cyber incidents, including data breaches, business interruption, and network damage."

Who needs cyber insurance? When assessing whether or not your business needs cyber insurance, consider these questions:

• Does the organization hold personally identifiable information (PII) records?
  
  
• If this data was breached, what would the consequences be?
  
  
• What are the organization's current cybersecurity protocols?
  
  
• Does the organization's current insurance policy cover cybersecurity-related risks?

How much does it cost? The cost of cyber insurance – like your home insurance – is based on the risk to the insurance company. The more you can mitigate your exposure to cybercrime, the more favorably the insurance company will look at your application.

Interested in ways to lower your cyber insurance premiums? We put together this handy checklist to prepare you for some of the questions you'll likely be asked when applying for cyber insurance. We also wrote a blog that goes into more depth on these questions that you can find by scrolling to the bottom of this newsletter!

Have you ever taken out some cash for a trip or to go to your favorite cash-only restaurant only to find out somewhere in between the time you got the cash and the time you need to pay, the money has somehow managed to lose itself? 

That pit in your stomach after losing any amount of money stings but would you feel the same way if instead, you lost personal data?

Data is becoming increasingly more valuable, which gives cybercriminals more motivation to target businesses of all sizes.

Treat your data like cash because, unlike credit card fraud, data is something that you are very unlikely to get back. We enjoyed this article written about this subject by George Platsis.

• Key Takeaway: Information should be thought of as another form of currency. This means proactively protecting your data isn't just a means to an end, but a necessity.

How do you find a policy that is right for you? Forbes wrote an article that outlines some steps you can take to choose the correct policy.

• Key Takeaway: Discover what the insurer is doing to stay current with evolving threats and related insurance risk profiling.

Don't just take our word for it.. In a recent interview, Federal Reserve Chairmen Jerome Powell said that his main concern isn't another financial crisis, but cyber risk.

It comes as no surprise then that the White House issued an Executive Order to Improve the Nations Cyber Security.

• Key Takeaway: The White House is implementing a Zero Trust Architecture in their cyber security, which assumes that a breach is inevitable or has already happened. This reinforces just how important cyber insurance is for when the worst does happen.

Before you go on LinkedIn and give yourself the title of "Certified Cyber Insurance Expert", we have one more blog that we think will come in handy.

Price shouldn't be your only - or even your first - consideration. We've broken the conversation down into 20 things that you should know about your own cyber security protocols before googling "cyber insurance providers".

All 20 questions are important but if we had to give you the top five, it'd look something like this:

• Do you limit remote access to all computer systems by using two-factor authentication?
  
  
• Do you provide periodic security training to employees?
  
  
• Do you provide security training to employees and contractors upon hire?
  
  
• Do you conduct phishing assessments?
  
  
• Do you use endpoint protection in your network? What brand?

Because of the fast pace of change in the threat landscape, it's important that you get all the info you can before you buy or renew cyber insurance. We hope you feel better equipped to delve into the world of cyber insurance after reading this newsletter.

If you made it this far, we're guessing you either read something you liked or maybe you accidentally scrolled to the bottom. Regardless of which is true, please consider sharing this email with a coworker or a friend!