Coalition, Inc. - Experts & Thought Leaders

Coalition, the world's first Active Insurance provider designed to prevent digital risk before it strikes, has become the first cyber insurance provider in the UK to launch a service dedicated to recovering funds stolen by cyber attackers. The cyber insurer’s new UK ‘clawback’ service is designed to intercept funds in the banking system before an attacker can move them. The programme was recently proven successful with the recovery of £1.4m for a policyholder. Cyber clawback service  Laura Stewart, Coalition’s UK Head of Claims, said, “As far as we are aware, we are the first cyber insurance provider in the UK to offer this sort of service to clawback money in a funds transfer fraud event." "While we can’t guarantee that we will be successful in getting all of the stolen funds back every time, we’ve now established a process that will enable us to act immediately, which increases our chances of success." Communicating with banks “While Coalition has been recovering stolen funds for US clients for some time now, the UK banking system is different: it moves faster, is harder to navigate, and UK banks are often more reluctant to communicate with third parties." "That’s why we’ve teamed up with a financial crime law partner. This relationship and new process give us the ability to communicate with the banks quickly and forcefully.” Cyber insurance cover The coalition team was able to help prevent the banks from moving the stolen funds In the example mentioned above, attackers stole £1.4m in a sophisticated social engineering attack on a law firm in the south of England. The law firm had funds transfer fraud cyber insurance cover for up to £250,000, only a fraction of the total loss. By partnering with a national law firm that uses its knowledge of and relationships within the banking system, the Coalition team was able to help prevent the banks from moving the stolen funds and recover the entire £1.4m. Add practical value Tom Draper, Coalition’s Managing Director, UK, said, “We continue to add practical value to our Active Cyber Insurance product, helping protect SMEs from cyber events." "Funds transfer fraud can be devastating for any business, and adding Coalition’s clawback service to the UK gives us another way to support our policyholders and brokers when their financial livelihoods are on the line.”

Coalition, the world's first Active Insurance provider designed to prevent digital risk before it strikes, released the 2023 edition of its Cyber Claims Report detailing the evolution of cyber trends. The report found that policyholders with even one unresolved critical vulnerability were 33% more likely to experience a claim. Additionally, policyholders — regardless of organisation size — who continued to use end-of-life software, products no longer supported by their original developers, were three times more likely to suffer from an incident.  Author's quote “Threat actors are forever looking for targets with weak security controls or unprotected infrastructures - these are the paths of least resistance into a company’s network,” said Catherine Lyle, Coalition’s Head of Claims, adding “Unfortunately, that’s why human inaction, such as not patching a publicised critical vulnerability or updating out-of-date software, is a high-risk factor for a cyber incident or cyber claim.” Cyber Claims Report Overall phishing-related claims have increased by 29% from the beginning of 2022 The 2023 Cyber Claims Report also found that, in addition to human inaction, human error is equally as high of a risk driver. Phishing accounted for 76% of reported incidents—more than six times greater than the next-most popular attack technique.  Overall phishing-related claims have increased by 29% from the beginning of 2022. Successful phishing frequently leads to funds transfer fraud (FTF) or business email compromise (BEC) events but is also the top path used to get into an organisation’s system for any purpose. Critical recommendation “It’s a straightforward but critical recommendation: setting up multi-factor authentication is one of the best ways to prevent attackers from getting into an organisation’s network because it provides the person protection even when security is not top of mind. For a majority of Coalition’s phishing-related cases, multi-factor authentication would have stopped access and prevented a claim,” continued Catherine Lyle.  Other key findings from the report include: Overall claims frequency decreased by 17% from 2021 to 2022. FTF frequency slightly decreased in 2022 after sharply rising by 23% in 2021. Similarly, FTF severity flattened in 2022 after a 68% surge. When policyholders alerted Coalition to an FTF event, Coalition successfully recovered 66% of lost funds. Ransomware claims frequency dropped 54% year-over-year (YoY). Ransomware demands also decreased YoY from $1.2 million in 2021 to $1 million in 2022—a 17.5% drop. In 2022, Coalition successfully negotiated ransom payments down for policyholders to an average of 27% of the initial demand.  Billions of security scans This report aggregates claims and incident data from 2022, including the highest-profile claim events and cyber attacks that continue to pose risks to all businesses. By performing billions of security scans across the public internet, sending thousands of critical security alerts, and investigating cyber incidents, Coalition creates a picture of the industry landscape that helps empower organisations to understand their cyber risk better.

Coalition, the world's first Active Insurance provider designed to prevent digital risk before it strikes, announces it will enter the excess cyber insurance market in the United Kingdom to help protect businesses with enhanced coverage. By adding additional capacity to the market in this way, Coalition will help more businesses get the coverage they need to protect themselves from digital risks. Coalition will extend its reach to provide full-follow form coverage and protection of up to £10 million above a primary layer of insurance from another insurer for both cyber and technology professional indemnity (PI) lines.  Surface monitoring technology A Coalition excess policy provides the added benefits for policyholders of access to Coalition Control A Coalition excess policy provides the added benefits for policyholders of access to Coalition Control, its proprietary attack surface monitoring technology that delivers up-to-the-minute, personalised risk assessments, as well as advice from Coalition’s in-house incident response cyber support team. Coalition’s policies are supported by Allianz and Lloyd’s of London. Coalition excess policy Tom Draper, Coalition’s U.K. Head of Insurance, said: “Our new excess product is designed to help U.K. brokers struggling to find enough cyber and tech PI protection for their clients. By bringing in Coalition to provide excess cover, brokers give their clients greater reassurance with our state-of-the-art prevention technology and early threat warnings from our 24/7 internet scanning operation.” The firm already offers excess of loss cyber products in the U.S. (beginning in July 2020) and Canada (beginning in July 2021). Coalition launched in the U.K. in September 2022. The company was founded in the United States in 2017. Earlier this year, the firm launched its own insurance company in the U.S. called Coalition Insurance Company.