NIBA / Special Feature
TIPS FOR BROKERS: CHANGING THE CONVERSATION WITH CLIENTS
Bringing in specialist knowledge and teaming up with an agency is a route taken too by Zurich, which recently announced a partnership with cyber agency Cowbell. It’s a partnership that’s seen success in the US and UK markets, and Alex Morgan, Head of General Insurance, Zurich Australia & New Zealand, says, “The expansion of this partnership to Australia was a natural evolution. Not only does this allow us to leverage any existing learnings and innovations, but it also means we can harness the best of what both organisations have to offer, resulting in a solution that directly meets the needs of customers. “The AI technology underpinning this offering draws upon millions of data points from this large existing footprint, helping new Australian customers benchmark their cyber posture and vulnerabilities in real time.” The move to launch cyber as a joint venture with a specialist agency is in line with market trends and needs, and Morgan says, “As a global insurer that has been operating for more than 150 years, Zurich will always have a significant range of core products which have a long-standing history of meeting customer needs. “However, strategic joint ventures and embedded insurance solutions are also an important opportunity for us to expand into new segments or meet evolving customer needs. These partnerships allow us to combine expertise and technology with other parties to create leading products that directly address any needs and gaps within the market.” Continually emerging cyber threats are redefining what businesses need to do to protect themselves, while simultaneously redefining insurance. This evolution will continue, and it’ll be interesting to see how it changes perception and customer expectations in other lines. In the meantime, the message is clear: cyber insurance is becoming a business pre- requisite. It’s a message clients need to understand.
BROKERS PLAY A HUGELY IMPORTANT ROLE IN EDUCATING CLIENTS AND HELPING THEM UNDERSTAND THE SCALE AND REALITY OF CYBER RISK. FOR MANY BUSINESSES, THIS IS STILL A ‘NEW AND EMERGING’ RISK, SO EDUCATION ON THE RISK – AND SOLUTION – IS KEY. Aaron Langmaid says, “It’s important businesses understand how easy it is to align to best practice from a resilience perspective, and how cheaply you can get connected with a product, especially in the SME space. “Implementing some entry level security requirements to at least align with some expectations from the insurers is easy, usually cheap, and can be swiftly implemented without disrupting or changing any current business process.” The true value of any insurance product is only ever seen after an incident has happened. This applies to cyber too – however the ‘what happens next’ element is something clients need to understand. “A client needs to consider what the first 24 hours look like if an incident occurs, and how the business would respond with no cover in place. “Having a cyber risk product takes away the stress and ultimately costs, time and resources associated with what can be an arduous task of managing a potentially business ending scenario.” The wraparound cyber service provided by specialist insurers today is different to many other insurance products, and when time is of the essence it’s essential to understand your options. “The calibre of incident response and claims support has seen huge improvements over the years as we reach a maturity with the risk,” says Langmaid. “In SME, roughly 60-70% of claims costs connect to the capability that is engaged to support an incident. “Given what it would cost a business to independently engage these types of companies, access the level of capability to assist in an incident and to simply get the defined capability in the room to support the insured is absolutely worth the cost of the premium.” Con Bakas agrees. “Unlike some of the traditional insurance policies, there's a lot of additional benefits to buying cyber. Outside of the immediate incident response, you’ve got legal support, PR support, forensic IT, accountancy – for any business to figure that out themselves would be virtually impossible and incredibly costly.”
52 / INSURANCE ADVISER FEBRUARY/MARCH 2026
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