The cyber risk landscape continues to evolve rapidly, with ransomware attacks and business email scams increasing, and new threats emerging. This puts cyber security and protection in the form of cyber insurance high on every business’ agenda. We sat down with Massimiliano Rijllo, Co-Founder and CEO of Coinnect, to talk about the current status of the Cyber Insurance Industry, his vision for the future and how his company Coinnect can help insurance companies enhance their cyber insurance offering.

Massimiliano, why is cyber risk, now more than ever, relevant for the insurance industry?

Insurers are struggling to deal with cyber risk due to the increased number and costs of cyber claims and the challenge to evaluate risk in a complex and highly dynamic scenario. Also, traditional ways of assessing risk based on questionnaires are not effective for cyber risk, as cyber risk is too dynamic and changes continuously. Customers are requesting insurance coverage, but they are often not able to obtain simple and swift insurance solutions. A new paradigm is needed and requires insurers to adopt technical solutions for proactive cyber risk monitoring and mitigation during the entire life of a policy, and not only when a policy is activated. Coinnect for example, provides a full stack of services and technologies to assist insurers during different stages dealing with prospects, clients and claims for cyber insurance.

You mention that cyber risk changes continuously, what new trends do you see?

Security and Ransomware attacks have become a growing concern for organizations of all sizes, with small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) being particularly vulnerable. There is a huge market for insurers considering only a small percentage of SMBs and SMEs are currently covered for cyber risk. For these kinds of clients, we see an increasing need for insurers to bundle technical services for risk mitigation as a way to lower the risk for both clients and the insurance company.

How should the cyber insurance industry tackle this risk mitigation?

Continuous risk monitoring and mitigation is something that insurers adopted years ago in other business lines like automotive, with technologies enabling continuous analysis and often active protection integrating this within the insurance policy. In cyber, the majority of insurers are still relying on questionnaires performed at the beginning of the policy without any visibility of what happens after. Continuous risk monitoring and mitigation of cyber insured clients may create an increased level of security and proactive cooperation between clients and insurers. The result is a lowered risk for both insurers and clients and a positive outcome for a more resilient society.

How do you see the future of cyber insurance?

I think the future will be dominated by insurers able to integrate technical services and technologies within their cyber insurance offering. Innovation-driven insurers will be able to continuously innovate their offering in cooperation with technical partners. There is a debate in the industry about cyber becoming an “uninsurable risk”. The challenge is to create integrated propositions, technical services and policies to make cyber a profitable business for insurers.

Insurers need to consider cyber an extremely dynamic risk impossible to be evaluated with traditional approaches like questionnaires and start using advanced technologies and services for proactive risk monitoring and mitigation instead.

Cyber Insurtech solutions will become an essential component to enable insurers to create innovative propositions for clients and transform cyber insurance lines into a growing and profitable business.

How does Coinnect support insurers?

Coinnect is a Cyber Insurtech Company. Our mission is to mitigate cyber risk and incident costs both for clients and the insurance industry. It helps loss adjusters, brokers, MGAs, insurers and reinsurers deal with cyber risk. We provide a cloud platform and APIs to assess, mitigate and respond to cyber risks of prospects and insured clients. We use proprietary cyber intelligence data and methodology to enable insurers to technically assess the cyber risk of a prospect and continuously monitor the risks of clients. It is built to be integrated within insurance policies and enables insurers to complement and enhance their cyber insurance offering.

ITC DIA Europe 2023

We are pleased to announce that Massimiliano Rijllo, Co-Founder and CEO of Coinnect, will be a speaker at ITC DIA Europe 2023. Coinnect is a Cyber Insurtech company that offers cloud platforms, APIs, cyber intelligence data and services for risk assessment, mitigation and response to support insurance and reinsurance companies, brokers, MGAs and loss adjusters. Coinnect is based in Switzerland and has partners across Europe, including some of the world’s largest brokers, loss adjusters and insurance players, Coinnect provides advanced solutions and technical hands-on experience dealing with cyber claims and ransomware.