FICO Survey: 8 in 10 Indian Firms Have Cybersecurity Insurance — But Only Half Say It Is Full Coverage | BIIA.com | Business Information Industry Association

Highlights:

Only 18 percent of Indian executives surveyed say their firm has no cybersecurity insurance.
Only half (48 percent) of Indian firms said their cybersecurity insurance covers all risks.
44 percent of Indian firms said their insurer based their premiums on an accurate analysis of their risk profile.
Telco firms lead other industries, with 60 percent reporting comprehensive coverage.
Ovum conducted telephone surveys for FICO of security executives at 500 companies in India and 10 other countries.

The second annual cybersecurity survey from research and consultancy firm Ovum, for Silicon Valley analytics firm FICO, found that the number of Indian firms with cybersecurity insurance was 82 percent. This places India second, behind only the UK across the 11 countries surveyed. However, the number of firms reporting comprehensive coverage sits at about half (48 percent) showing there is still a level of risk taken by business in India. More information: https://www.fico.com/en/latest-thinking/ebook/india-views-from-the-c-suite-survey-2018

“It’s is very encouraging to see the high uptake of cybersecurity insurance across India,” said Vishal Goyal, country manager for India at FICO. “India has a well-developed IT sector and is on the front-foot with this issue. The data breaches in India in the past 12 months have continued to have an impact on local businesses, so there is recognition that insurance plays an important role in risk mitigation and is an important consideration to minimizing disruption.”

Last year, a study by the Ponemon Institute investigated the cost of data breaches to Indian companies and discovered that in 2017 the average total cost increased 12.3 percent, the size of breaches increased 6 percent and the loss of existing customers increased by 4.3 percent.

When FICO’s respondents were asked if they felt their insurance premiums were based on an assessment that accurately reflected their risk profile, 44 percent of firms said yes. Only 17 percent said firms said premiums were based on an inaccurate analysis, 32 percent said they were based on industry averages and 7 percent on unknown factors.

Indian telecommunications firms were the most likely to have cybersecurity insurance — 80 percent had insurance while 60 percent reported it as comprehensive to their level of risk. This compares well to financial services, where 40 percent of firms have comprehensive coverage.

“Indian companies are clearly leading the way when it comes to the take-up of cyber-insurance, with almost half having a comprehensive policy and a further one-third with at least some cover,” said Maxine Holt, research director at Ovum. “Around two-thirds of surveyed organizations in India either use software to give a breach likelihood score, or use an external agency to carry out risk assessments.

Ovum conducted the survey for FICO through telephone interviews with 500 senior executives, mostly from the IT function, in businesses from the UK, the US, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Germany, India, Finland, Norway, Sweden and South Africa. Respondents represented firms in financial services, telecommunications, retail and ecommerce, and power and utilities. Ovum is part of the Business Intelligence Division of Informa plc, a leading business intelligence, academic publishing, knowledge and events group listed on the London Stock Exchange. https://ovum.informa.com/

In July, FICO announced that it is offering free subscriptions to the Portrait portal of the FICO® Security Risk Suite, which gives businesses access to their FICO® Cyber Risk Score. The score, a machine learning-based cybersecurity rating service, can show organizations how business partners and cyber insurance underwriters see their network security, and can help them benchmark their performance. More information is at http://cyberscore.fico.com.