Will the Pandemic Complicate Cyber Insurance Claims?

Most organizations are now requiring that their employees work from home with the ongoing novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. However, in the event of a breach or other incident, there may be limitations in your cyber liability insurance policy based upon the type of hardware being used. As with all contracts, whether there is coverage or not will depend on the specific terms and conditions of the insurance policy itself.

One issue that may be overlooked is that many cyber liability insurance policies make a distinction between computer hardware owned by the insured company and computer hardware or other devices owned by company employees. This distinction becomes critical as the insuring agreements may limit or exclude coverage for computer hardware that it is not owned by the named insured. The insurance policy may also have other requirements related to the use of personal devices by employees, such as requiring a formal written policy to address the use of such devices.