Cyber Insurance Requires Cyber-Specific Underwriting Tools

If cybercrime were measured in terms of GDP, it’d be the world’s third richest nation, eclipsing the economies of Japan, Germany, and India. With earnings measured in escalating $trillions, this growth “industry” shows no sign of slowing—or stagnating. Cybercriminals are quick to take advantage of emerging tech, and cyber insurers must also innovate to keep pace.

Carriers are increasingly turning to new classes of tech-forward solutions to accelerate review cycles, slash data processing costs, and navigate a risk landscape that changes ludicrously fast. In this post, I’ll outline how Sixfold’s AI risk assessment helps insurers grab their part of the industry’s fastest-growing segment.

Cyber risk analysis at scale

Sixfold provides underwriters with an efficient alternative to traditional workflows that are often time reliant on paper workflows and human intermediation. 

Sixfold taps proprietary AI to build a virtual model of each carrier’s unique risk appetite by ingesting existing underwriting guidelines (be they in the form of an official handbook, a loose assortment of PDFs, or even just historic underwriting decisions), which can then be easily scaled out to the entire org. 

Crucially to cyber, these digital guidelines can be iterated centrally and disseminated instantly to accommodate new risks such as a freshly unearthed CVE or emerging malware threat. Building digital underwriting models could take weeks or even months using traditional techniques, but with Sixfold, it can be completed in hours. This is our platform’s superpower, but it’s not the only way we’re making cyber work.

Accelerated review cycles

Cyber underwriters are under pressure to expedite case reviews to meet skyrocketing demand but data shows they’ve been challenged to keep pace. 

A recent survey found that companies saying it took more than six months to get cyber coverage increased by more than 7X (!) between 2022 and 2023. Demand bottlenecks are one part of the problem, but a more fundamental issue is at play: cyber coverage applications are painfully inefficient. 

Traditional methods often rely on underwriters manually reviewing data from IT questionnaires and additional submitted materials. This process requires underwriters to have a deep understanding of the cyber landscape and evolving threats. Sixfold changes this by automating the collection and unification of relevant information, streamlining the review process. The platform efficiently ingests both structured and unstructured data from various sources—third-party databases, public information, automated domain scans, cyber questionnaires, and more—delivering the essential insights cyber underwriters need to make informed decisions  such as: 

• NAICS or SIC code classification with industry-leading accuracy level. 
• Operational business overview such as business description, revenue, and location.
• In-depth security insights customized to highlight the data each carrier identifies as critical—whether it's past cyber incidents or key practices like MFA or encryption. By aligning with their underwriting guidelines, these insights ensure recommendations match the carrier’s risk appetite.
• Additional third party insights from proprietary data sources 

Once the data is gathered and processed, the platform surfaces risk appetite-aligned signals and presents them to underwriters via clear, short summarizations (e.g. “This company does not use MFA for employees” or “Company does employ a Chief Information Security Officer.”) along with data sources, down to the exact page number, for underwriters to always know where the information is coming from. Sixfold basically provides every underwriter with their own personal, virtual team of researchers, analysts, and writers who know precisely what info is needed to render a decision quickly. 

Read more: Sixfold partners with Cybercube for unprecedented cyber data access

Sixfold reduced review times by more than 50%, and just as importantly, it allows underwriters to master the always-changing complexities of the cyber risk landscape, so they can confidently make the most reliably informed decisions. 

Empower every underwriter with the latest cyber wisdom

The comparative newness of cyber has, until recently, been a barrier for many underwriters. Traditional lines like P&C and general liability have roots dating back to the 18th century along with well-established guidelines (e.g., property in flood zones costs more to insure), but cyber underwriters have little precedent to rely on (exactly what types of businesses are most vulnerable to phishing?) 

What’s more? Cyber changes fast. Much faster than traditional underwriting infrastructures were designed to accommodate. Home insurers have the comparatively enviable task of adapting to decades-long trends like climate change, but cyber underwriters must contend with sudden, sharp disruptions due to some technological breakthrough that came out of left field—and new technological breakthroughs are always coming out of left field.

It’s asking a lot of underwriters to precisely understand the latest contours of the cyber risk landscape. With Sixfold, underwriters lean on the platform to spotlight the critical information they need so they can make more confident decisions, faster.

New markets deserve new tools

The cyber market is expected to grow from $14.8 billion this year to $90.6 billion next decade, but to build a sustainably profitable business in this fast-moving business, carriers will need a new set of underwriting tools. 

Sixfold’s AI risk-assessment solution gives insurers the advantage they need to grow their cyber GWP and stand out in an increasingly competitive marketplace. 

Want to see it in action? ➡️ Join our live product demo this Thursday, November 7th.

Disclaimer: Any references to specific companies throughout this blog post or in any images are for illustrative purposes only and do not represent real data or actual risk assessments

‍This post was originally posted on LinkedIn