ICMIF Supporting Member Gallagher Re, the global reinsurance broker, and BitSight, a global provider of cybersecurity ratings, have recently announced a collaboration to integrate BitSight cybersecurity data with Gallagher Re’s reinsurance insights and analytics.
The partnership will provide reinsurance clients with a holistic view of security performance and supply chain aggregation within their portfolios, giving them a comprehensive and differentiated understanding of cyber risk compared with existing modelling approaches on the market.
As innovative companies that have established strong reputations in cyber insurance, Gallagher Re and BitSight are well matched. Gallagher Re has differentiated itself from its peers with its sophisticated, analytics-centric approach to cyber reinsurance. As a market leader in cyber reinsurance broking, Gallagher Re chose BitSight as an ideal partner due to the risk ratings firm’s wide, data-backed knowledge of the cyber risk landscape.
Faced with increased claims associated with ransomware attacks, the cyber insurance industry has evolved significantly over the last 12 months deploying rate changes, coverage restrictions, and more robust underwriting practices. With this advancement in underwriting, reinsurers are exploring how technologies that provide an ‘attacker’s perspective’ can deepen understanding of risk.
Recent cyber events and market changes have increasingly shown that harnessing cyber data offers potential benefits in risk selection and subsequent loss ratio.
Ed Pocock, Senior Cyber Consultant at Gallagher Re, said: “We believe data has a key role to play in cyber’s next growth phase, by unlocking improvements across underwriting, portfolio optimization and catastrophe modelling. Combining sophisticated data from BitSight with our differentiated approach to analytical modelling will help us deliver the insights that enable our clients to secure their competitive edge as cyber continues to grow.”
Stephanie Snyder Frenier, Vice President and General Manager, Insurance, at BitSight, added: “BitSight is yet again proving to be a critical part of the insurance marketplace, arming reinsurers with the cybersecurity performance data they need to make more informed decisions. This partnership indicates BitSight’s continued momentum in helping the global marketplace improve its understanding and management of cyber risk.”
