With increasingly more corporate organisations becoming targets for cybercriminals, Nobuhle Nkosi, Head of Financial Lines Africa, Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS), has said businesses would be better off transferring the risk associated to cybercrime to insurers.
According to her by 2020, the number of cybercrimes recorded globally would hit 17 million with financial, health institutions and other corporate organisations with sensitive users’ data more likely to be targeted.
Ms Nkosi who was speaking at a seminar to introduce the Allianz Cyber Protect Premium policy stated that, “data breaches are also expected to grow by 40% a year by 2019. The number and complicity of cyber-attacks is on the rise and are becoming more and more sophisticated by the day.
We have found that digital crime is a growing dimension of crime, and the reason for this is because criminals have the enormity, they can hide behind the dark web and not be seen and operate from anywhere in the world and have a wide reach of targets, working from their homes,” she added.
She added that increasingly more of their clients are becoming victims to this phenomenon and they are losing millions of dollars as a result and the Allianz Cyber Protect Premium is their [Allianz] response to cybercrime.
According to her, Allianz Cyber Protect Premium, is an initiative by Allianz Ghana and Midas Insurance Brokers which is aimed at providing clients with new insurance covers against threats or risks of cyber-attacks.
Speaking at the seminar, Chief Operating Officer of Midas Insurance Brokers, Eric Addo-Mensah, said cybercrime is an area which is largely not covered by the insurance sector arguing that the potential for insurance companies is very high.
The seminar was aimed at bringing technology experts to advise IT managers, head of legal and industry practitioners on how to address the cyber risk and take active steps to identify, assess and manage the risk on an enterprise-wide basis.
Directors & Officers Liability Risk
The seminar also focused on Directors and Officers Liability Risk, which Ag. MD for Allianz, Martin Amoah said, has evolved and the one-day seminar offered participants opportunity to reflect on how much risks there are for managers in corporate organisations, guiding them to take appropriate insurance to cover themselves and their institutions against these risks.
“The D&O insurance offers cover for company managers to protect themselves from claims which may arise from the decisions and actions they take within the scope of their regular mandates,” he said.
The Allianz Group is one of the world’s leading insurers and asset managers with more than 86 million retail and corporate customers.
It is also one of the world’s largest investors managing over €650 billion on behalf of its insurance customers.
By Richard Annerquaye Abbey | thebftonline.com | Ghana
