Marsh unveils Cyber Unity facility for European SMEs

By Rebecca Delaney

June 25 - (The Insurer) - Marsh has launched the Marsh Cyber Unity facility for SMEs across the EU, Norway, Serbia, Turkey and Israel as part of an effort to boost cyber insurance uptake in the segment.

The facility was announced by Gamze Konyar, head of cyber at Marsh Europe, on Wednesday.

Backed by six A-rated global cyber insurers, Marsh Cyber Unity offers limits of up to 5 million euros ($5.8 million) for organisations with revenue of up to 500 million euros.

“Cyber Unity is designed to make cyber insurance more accessible, understandable and affordable for European organisations, while seamlessly uniting comprehensive coverage with essential risk prevention, claims and incident management services,” said Konyar.

The facility includes a streamlined placement process underpinned by Marsh’s proprietary cyber policy wording, as well as offering exclusive coverage extensions.

Marsh Cyber Unity also provides SMEs with access to cyber incident response services through an incident management platform, which is designed to ensure continuity in the event that primary communication or operational systems are compromised during a cyber incident.

It also includes a pre-negotiated claims management process along with comprehensive risk management and loss prevention services.

“We believe that, together with Cyber Unity, we can collaborate the collective efforts of the European economy to increase resilience by helping SMEs and mid-cap enterprises to improve their cyber resilience,” said Konyar.

Speaking on Marsh’s H1 cyber update webinar, Konyar outlined the current cyber insurance gap between SMEs and large enterprises.

“When we look at the SMEs coming from the hard market, we see that the lack of affordability, lack of accessibility and perception of complexity prevented smaller enterprises from deciding to buy cyber insurance,” she said.

“We see in Europe only 10% to 15% of SMEs have cyber insurance policies. We also have an underinsurance problem with the segment, which means that even if they have insurance, they may have a lot of sub-limits or some limitations or fewer limits than they need,” Konyar added.

This has also led to a lack of awareness around the benefits of cyber insurance beyond providing capacity and indemnification

“Another thing is lack of awareness regarding coverage scope. We still have some questions around the coverage, so we need to be more vocal about what cyber insurance provides,” said Konyar.

“We believe that standardisation and simplification of the procurement process will help SMEs, as well as clear and broad policy language. Increased awareness training is very important for that segment for them to understand the benefits of cyber insurance, as well as the coverage, scope, prevention and assistance services.”