Moody’s RMS, a leading provider of risk modeling for the insurance industry, has formed the Cyber Industry Steering Group, designed to address underwriting and other constraints in the cyber insurance sector.
“There is a clear need and a significant opportunity to accelerate growth in the global cyber underwriting market. However, there are many legitimate concerns around risk, regulation, and the lack of standardization. We are therefore committing to significantly increase our investment in cyber modeling, as we see this effort as central in our role to help develop new markets for the industry’s growth,” said Michael Steel, General Manager, Moody’s RMS, in a release (read it here.)
Joining Moody’s in the effort are re/insurer Munich Re, reinsurance broker Gallagher Re and cyber-risk management expert Bitsight.
Helping the industry attract capital is one objective of the effort. Tom Wakefield, Global CEO, Gallagher Re, said in the release: “Cyber represents both a systemic risk and huge opportunity for our industry. In a market likely to always be capital-constrained due to the sheer scale of future demand for risk transfer, our biggest challenge is attracting enough capital to support clients’ growth in this area.” Re-insurance already plays a large and growing role (and is facing challenges) in the cyber insurance space, with capital-market insurance products also growing in importance.
Bitsight will help jumpstart the effort with its cyber risk services. “As the creator of the cyber security ratings market, Bitsight helps organizations by leveraging its vast set of cyber exposure data and its proven cyber risk models which provide correlation to cybersecurity incidents,” commented Derek Vadala, Chief Risk Officer at Bitsight.