This article is part of VentureBeat’s special issue, “The cyber resilience playbook: Navigating the new era of threats.” Read more from this special issue here.
Today’s cyber attacks can be paralyzing — and extremely costly — for modern enterprises. Armed with AI, hackers are exploiting vulnerabilities faster than ever.
However, standard business insurance products such as general or professional liability policies (errors and omissions, or E&O) typically don’t cover losses or damages as the result of breaches or other cyber-related incidents.
This makes cybersecurity insurance increasingly critical in 2025 and beyond, particularly as AI transforms (and simplifies) hackers’ methodologies. Cybersecurity-specific insurance policies cover a range of remediation cost and recovery efforts to help enterprises limit damage, recover faster and improve their overall cyber hygiene.
But as with any other type of coverage, cyber insurance can be complicated to navigate and full of legalese and loopholes. Let’s go over the basics, why it’s important, what to look for and what trends to expect this year as AI takes center stage.
So what does cyber insurance cover?
Typically, cyber policies offer coverage for first-party (direct losses) and third-party (outside the business) damages. General coverage includes:
Business interruptions: Lost revenue when an attack takes systems offline;
Attack remediation: Incident response, forensic investigations or system repairs;
Customer notification and reputation management: Automated alerts when customers’ personally identifiable information (PII) may have been accessed; credit monitoring and breach hotlines; PR work to help repair the brand;
... continue reading