Sometimes it feels impossible to get through the day without technology. We’ve come to be extremely reliant on our computers and phones—after all, they do make things easier and faster…when they want to cooperate. Persnickety tricks and malfunctions notwithstanding, technology is great for your business. But your computers are also a huge vulnerability with plenty of IT risks. They’re an Achilles’ heel. That’s why cyber liability insurance is so crucial for your business.

Your computers are wide open to a hack that could jeopardize your customers’ personal information, even though we don’t want to think they are. Protecting your business against things that you can see is second nature, but cyber threats are pretty invisible, so it’s easy for them to escape our notice. Plus let’s be real—computers are complicated, so we might not even know we have a weak spot till it’s too late. A hack can strike like lightning—swift and devastating. Fortunately, they invented cyber liability insurance to protect your business against those invisible threats, and here’s what cyber insurance can do for you.

What will it protect you against?

Data breaches:

Your company might not have a huge online presence, and you might not yet be an Internet overlord. However, if you store your customers’ personal information anywhere on your server, you’re leaving a cookie crumb trail for a hacker. They could infiltrate your system and grab that information, which would probably not endear you to your customers.

Cyber liability insurance will help you cover the cost of notifying your customers of a breach, protect you against identity theft, and cover the cost of legal defense if someone takes you to court.

Third parties:

There’s an entire chain of connections when it comes to computers and the people that your company deals with. If your server gets hacked and corrupts a customer’s computer, for instance, you’d be covered. Any damage that a failure in your computer system could cause to a third party—a customer or supplier, perhaps—is covered.

System failures:

We’d like to think that technology is impervious to things like fire and, well, water, but it’s not. Your business might face a natural disaster that wipes out your fleet of computers, or you might get hit with vandalism or other destruction that ruins your devices.

Any physical damage could cause a loss of that precious data and code that your company needs to function—so imagine what would happen if you file a claim. The physical damage to your system’s hardware? Sure. Covered. No problem. The cost of rebuilding that data and code, plus the profits that you lost because your business couldn’t operate…well, not so much. That’s where cyber liability would step in to save the day.

Cyber extortion:

Someday you might have an unpleasant encounter in which a hacker takes your website or system hostage by making it inaccessible to your employees and your customers. They may demand a ransom to fix it. Well, now what? You’re now facing lost time since you have to negotiate with the kidnapper, lost income since your website has been “stolen”, and possibly the cost of rebuilding pieces of your website because let’s face it—the hacker might not return it unscathed. But guess what? Cyber liability insurance covers that, too.

Cyber liability insurance and business interruption:

Remember how we said that sometimes it feels like you can’t function without technology? We meant that figuratively. Unfortunately, in the case of your business, we mean it in a literal sense. There’s a whole host of scenarios that could lead to business interruption.

• Your servers could go down
• You could get hacked
• Your business’s servers could get destroyed in a fire or internal rainstorm

Any of these scenarios means you’re facing lost income and profits for your business, especially since you’d probably have to pour some time and resources into setting things to right. Sigh. But not to fear—cyber liability has got you covered.

Note: Another cool trick that cyber liability insurance would do for you in these scenarios is cover any operating expenses (drat that utility bill) that you have to pay even if your business can’t do business.

It’s troubling to think that there are threats you can’t see, especially when they’re related to computers, which can be fickle and confusing at the best of times. A data breach could spell disaster, as could the destruction of your computers. To fully protect your business, you might want to consider getting a cyber insurance policy so that you’re prepared for anything that could befall your computer systems.

InsuranceHub can help you out with that. We’ll get you a free quote for your cyber insurance by getting to know you and your business to find out what coverage is right for you. Give us a call or fill out our quote form today if you’d like to explore the possibility of cyber insurance! We can also help you out with your other coverages for your business.