Key cyber trends impacting the insurance industry

“Class counts have realized that if they’re complaining about the loss of the same type of personally identifiable information among all the clients and customers that were affected, they can certify a class action and that can be very expensive for a business,” he said.

Additionally, Dolden made note of how remedies for privacy breaches in Canada have previously been made on a patchwork basis through judge-made remedies and provincial legislation, stating Canada is now “at a turning point” in this regard with Bill C-11.

“That is going to be new federal legislation that in essence says anyone who is affected by a privacy breach has a right to sue for damages,” he said. “And that’s going to provide consumers, your clients and your customers with a very powerful remedy in the event that your network system has been compromised.”

As for the broker side of the cyber market, Shiraz Saeed, vice president, cyber risk product leader at Arch Insurance, brought up the prevalence of claims involving ransomware, phishing or business email compromise, and privacy disclosure.