What Is Personal Cyber Insurance and What Does It Cover?
Morse, Of Course, Explores Why Everyone Should Invest in This Critical Coverage
Technology is a part of our day-to-day lives; it connects us to family, colleagues, and friends all over the world and makes even the most mundane of tasks more manageable. You can lock your front door from afar, ask Alexa to add paper towels to your Amazon cart, deposit your birthday check from Nana from your couch, and connect your kids with their teachers in the middle of a pandemic. No matter how convenient technology makes our daily lives, it’s key to remember that it also opens us up to a new world of cybersecurity risks that can cripple even the safest among us.
If Something Unthinkable Were to Happen While Online, a Personal Cyber Insurance Policy Might Provide Protection and Peace of Mind.
When you think about personal insurance policies, you may automatically assume we are only referring to home and auto insurance. However, in today’s technology-driven world, there is another insurance policy that we want you to consider — personal cyber insurance. This once “nice to have” endorsement is now, in our opinion, a “need to have,” because it can offer financial protection against the often costly expenses associated with cyber threats and cybercrime.
According to the 2019 Identity Fraud Study from Javelin Strategy & Research, 14.4 million people were identity theft victims in 2018. Approximately 33% of those victims, or 3.3 million people, were responsible for paying out-of-pocket costs for some of the liability associated with the fraud, totaling a whopping $1.7 billion. Depending on the particular situation, most of the financial burden for these folks could have been relieved by personal cyber coverage.
There is no denying that cybercrimes, like identity fraud, theft, and data breaches, are on the rise. However, less common cyber attacks, like cyber extortion, ransomware, and cyberbullying, can be just as damaging to you and your family without the right safety measures in place.
No one wants to think that they’ll be a victim of a cybercrime. However, cybercriminals are becoming more deliberate and sophisticated in their attempts, making the issue at hand really a “not if but when” type of situation. To help illustrate this point further, the following are a few fictional yet all-too-real cybercrime scenarios where a personal cyber insurance policy may provide you with some much-needed financial protection and peace of mind when the unthinkable happens.
Three Common Cybercrime Scenarios and How a Personal Cyber Policy Could Help
Scenario #1 – A scammer creates a fake email from your bank and asks you to verify your username and password. In doing so, your login credentials are sent to the wrong person, and they gain access to your online banking account and initiate a transfer from your checking and savings accounts. A personal cyber insurance policy could potentially provide you with financial protection and peace of mind in a situation like this.
Scenario #2 – A digital criminal demands you to pay a hefty ransom in exchange for your Social Security number, date of birth, and credit card information. Under duress, you transfer thousands of dollars from your savings account. Personal cyber insurance could perhaps reimburse you for the extortion amount and the costs of conducting an investigation, up to the limits of your policy.
Scenario #3 – A cybercriminal posed as you online and began cyberbullying your work colleague. As a result, you were wrongfully terminated from your job. A personal cyber insurance policy may cover your lost salary up to your policy’s specific limits.
As you can see, everyone can benefit from a personal cyber insurance policy. Many of the insurance carriers we partner with offer this critical endorsement as an additional way to safeguard their customers and strengthen their home, renters, umbrella, or condo insurance policies.
What Does Personal Cyber Insurance Protect?
A standard cyber insurance policy provides a financial safety net to individuals and families who fall victim to identity theft, data breach, cyber extortion, ransomware, and cyberbullying on one of their personal smart (or internet-enabled) devices using their home network.
What Does Personal Cyber Insurance Cover?
As suggested in the preceding fictional scenarios, there are a few ways a cyberattack can result in a monetary loss. A typical personal cyber insurance policy offers financial reimbursement for the costs associated with the theft of digital and personal information, such as your Social Security number, bank account numbers, and credit card information, and assets up to the limits of your specific policy. Though no two insurance policies are the same, many cyber policies tend to cover the costs for expenses that fall into the following three categories:
Cyber Personal and Home Protection Coverage generally safeguards you against the financial ramifications associated with cyberbullying or attacks against the integrity of your home systems.Cyber Extortion Coverage usually protects you if a digital criminal threatened the release of your personal information or prevented your ability to access your technology unless you paid a ransom.
Financial Loss from Online Fraud Coverage generally covers you if you experience a financial loss or fraud, such as identify theft, stolen funds, or fraudulent use of a credit card or bank account, after a cyberattack.
Morse, Of Course, Is Here to Help You Add Cyber Insurance to Your Personal Insurance Plan.
The Morse Insurance team is here to safeguard you from those “that couldn’t possibly happen to me” moments while you or your family are online. Not only will we find you the perfect policy at the perfect rate, but we will also tailor the coverage to fit your exact needs.
If you have additional questions about personal cyber insurance or are interested in learning more about this valuable coverage and what it may cost, contact Morse Insurance today. You can also better protect yourself and loved ones from cybercriminals by familiarizing yourself with cyber safety tips from the FBI and the nation’s top internet security companies.