Guy Carp forms alliance with Symatec on cyber model

Guy Carpenter has formed a strategic alliance with Symantec Corporation, a global cyber security company to create a cyber aggregation model.

The model will include a comprehensive catalogue of cyber scenarios from which insurers can derive frequency and severity distributions to measure the potential financial impact of loss from both affirmative cyber coverages and ‘silent’ all-risk policies where cyber is the peril, but no cyber exclusions exist.

Guy Carpenter’s cyber solutions specialty practice, which focuses on the development and delivery of innovative cyber reinsurance solutions, will spearhead this effort. Symantec is a complementary new partner for Guy Carpenter.

Cyber attacks are estimated to cost businesses as much as $400 billion a year, and the systemic nature of the risk means re/insurers can suffer losses from multiple insureds across vast geographies from a single event, exposing infrastructure, supply chain, and other interconnected risks, according to Guy Carpenter.

“In the wake of the cyber attack on the Ukrainian power grid in late 2015, re/insurers are attempting to model, and assess the aggregation risk of, potential attacks on critical infrastructure, including electric grids, telecommunications networks, dams, transportation systems, chemical plants and civilian nuclear facilities,” said the firm. “However, limited historical data and the constantly evolving threat make it a challenging peril to model.”

Tim Gardner, chief executive of US operations at Guy Carpenter, added: “By combining Guy Carpenter’s risk management and catastrophe modelling expertise with Symantec’s technical knowledge and proprietary data, we are pioneering a cyber aggregation model to help reinsurers gain a better understanding of their correlated cyber risks and to manage and protect their capital in extreme cyber scenarios.

Roxane Divol, senior vice president and general manager of website security at Symantec and executive sponsor of Symantec’s new Cyber Insurance Group, commented: “Symantec’s cyber security data and analytics, combined with Guy Carpenter’s deep knowledge of the emerging cyber reinsurance market, will give our insurance customers a better understanding of the most damaging cyber attacks.”