As Cyber Risks becomes increasingly a major threat to enterprise growth and development in this part of the world, insurance operators are feeling concerned on how to provide security that will enable businesses run without losing money.
They believe that with digitalisation driving business process now in Nigeria like many other parts of the world, threat of cyber risks cannot be taken for granted any longer.
In this vein, one of the leading insurance companies in Nigeria, Leadway Assurance Company Limited in partnership with its foreign partners, Chubb, the world’s largest publicly traded P&C insurance company and the largest commercial insurer in the U.S recently held a seminar on cyber risks, providing local indigenous players insights on the emerging risk.
Adetola Adegbayi, executive director, General Business, Leadway Assurance speaking during an interview at the Seminar said “We live in a world of numbers. Things are being programmed to work normally without a lot of human interventions. People are withdrawing their monies without having to walk into the banking hall, and so within the insurance industry, we must recognize that new world and play a role in it.”
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Adegbayi said the role insurers are going to play is to provide financial securities required for enterprises to continue to run without losing money.
“Cyber Risk Insurance is relatively new, and those of us within the insurance industry are now beginning to realize that, and say yes, we must also play a role in the new world, because that risks that customers face are changing and becoming more dynamic and so we cannot continue to offer the same clean vanilla, and think it will cover the emerging risks.”
She said that Cyber Risk is no longer new in the international market, as organisations like Chubb has had more than twenty years experience providing risks management on cyber securities.
“Within the international insurance market, the issue of cyber risk is no longer new to them, having provided cover in similar risks since the past 20 years. They are bringing us expertise, which we will lean on to understand the risks.
She said organisations must begin to insure their value against cyber crimes. “It’s not about how dip your pocket is, but that, if you have assets and value, you need to protect it through insurance”
On the potential of cyber risks to the industry, Adegbayi responded. “Before we begin to look at the potential to the industry, we have to first of all look at security to the client. It is security to clients that will show us the potential.”
“Once we are there to provide the needed services and also able to understand the risks that the clients face, we can now begin to talk about potential.”
Modestus Anaesoronye
