Cyber insurance claims in North America reached record levels in 2023, according to insurance broker Marsh.
The firm received over 1800 cyber claim reports from clients in the US and Canada, more than any other year. It said this increase was driven by a range of factors:
- The growing sophistication of cyber-attacks
- The scale of the MOVEit file transfer supply chain incident
- Privacy claims
- An increasing number of organizations purchasing cyber insurance
Around a fifth (21%) of clients reported at least one cyber event in 2023, a small increase on 2022 (18%). The proportion of covered companies reporting at one or more cyber events has remained relatively consistent over the past five years, staying between 16% and 21%.
The healthcare industry has consistently submitted the highest number of cyber insurance claims from 2020-2023, Marsh found.
Healthcare made up 17% of all claims last year, followed by communications (16%), education (9%), retail/wholesale (8%) and financial institutions (8%).
Cyber Extortion Hits Record Levels
The report showed that 282 clients reported at least one cyber extortion event, including ransomware, in 2023. This was a significant rise compared to 2022 when 172 companies reported such events, which was lower than the previous two years.
One potential factor behind the resurgence in cyber extortion events is the growing shift towards data exfiltration away from encryption by attackers, and the emergence of a new ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model.
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