With the digital age, comes an increasing need for safety and security. As we all know, companies actively protect themselves against cyber crime. One of the options to do this would be through an insurance. But did you know that we can now, as a consumer, insure ourselves against ransomware and virusses? One of the Dutch insurance companies, Univé, provides its insured with a router with extra protection, a virusscanner and compensation should they be unable to protect them. Univé assures their insured of their privacy, stating that data cannot be accessed through this router.
This is the first time an insurance company protects against virusses, other insurance companies such as VKG do already provide insurance for cyberbullying and identity theft. Other insurance companies are not yet convinced of the market potential, after doing their research about a year and a half ago.
The ‘virus-insurance’ will cost 12 euros a month, but compensation to restore devices has a maximum of 5000 euros. A customer can only claim a maximum of three cyberincidents a month. Personally, I don’t see any added value. Simply because the cyber issues that I can think of that pose threaths to consumers, are not covered by this virusinsurance. For instance if consumers click on a link, because the email they’ve received looks just like the ones they normally receive from their own bank. It is also still a grey area which issues will be covered. Moreover, the router and virusscanner that are being used by Univé, can be purchased directly through the supplier F-Secure. Most importantly, the reason that consumers experience virus issues is because their lack of awareness leaves them vulnerable (Webroot, 2010). In my opinion, education on these topics should always be a priority.
Also, offering this cyberinsurance might be an even bigger threat for the insurance company itself. Imagine a huge virus spreading to hundreds of thousands of people, that are all insured by the same company?
What do you think, is there a market for virus insurance?
NOS, (2017). Avaiable at: https://nos.nl/artikel/2198715-virusverzekering-moet-mensen-beschermen-tegen-digitale-schade.html [Retrieved on 21 Oct. 2017]
Webroot (2010) Available at: https://www.webroot.com/us/en/about/press-room/releases/internet-users-fall-for-cybercriminals-tactics [Retrieved on 21 Oct. 2017]
Very nice topic Beth, I have never thought about this particular kind of Virus protection. As my answer to your question: I do not see any potential market for virus insurance, YET. The 5000 is way to smal for companies to have any benefit from protection their hardware. And for customers, why would you pay 12 euros for an insurance if you can have virus protection instead? Ive read the article on NOS, and other insurance companies are not enthousiatic yet, which is understandable. This might become relevant in the future, when social lives and all value traffic is across the internet and you must have some sort of protection for this “identity” but for now on, I agree with your point that this is not useful.