According the BBC report CFC Cyber Insurance Claims have increased 78% for data breach/cyber-attacks. The claims came in at a rate of more than 1 a day in 2016 for this insurer. They have seen large amounts of login details stolen and shared more frequently.
The data breaches were proving more popular as the selling stolen confidential information or using the stolen login information to steal cash. Interestingly enough ransomware attacks were only the 3rd most frequent cause of lost with 16% of the claims. Privacy breach was number 1 with 31% of the claims that were reported, followed by 22% of the claims being for financial loss.
Most of the reported claims were from smaller firms, were the security was weak.
The article speculates that many smaller firms were purchasing cyber insurance in place of better security because they could not afford the staffing and cost of running a large internal security staff. But it ends with the warning that not having good cyber-defenses is very risking because many cyber breaches become public events that are very damaging to a firm. In some cases the PR may cause the business to fail.