Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty SE (AGCS), Allianz Group’s specialist carrier for corporate insurance business, has teamed up with Silicon Valley-based cyber risk analytics and modeling firm Cyence to boost its global cyber risk analysis capabilities. By combining Cyence’s cyber analytics platform with AGCS’ underwriting processes, the insurer will be able to analyze cyber exposures at company level for large businesses, creating a detailed understanding of their cyber risks and quickly allowing it to tailor coverage to fit specific customer profiles.
In a second initiative, AGCS plans to integrate Cyence’s cyber risk analytics into new digital distribution platforms that enable low-touch, automated underwriting of cyber policies for medium-size companies. Both companies are also joining forces to develop a new predictive modelling tool for cyber-driven business interruption risks.
“We are moving our underwriting approach from hindsight to foresight,” explains AGCS Board Member Hartmut Mai as the rationale behind the cooperation with Cyence. “The future of underwriting and practical risk management will be based on the intelligent use of technology and data. AGCS has always been known for its industry-specific expertise, but going forward we must complement our technical know-how and experience with extensive data-driven insight and predictive modelling if we want to keep ahead of new risks such as cyber, supply chain, or emerging liability exposures. After an extensive evaluation of various partners, AGCS is excited to partner with Cyence for their market leading capabilities.”
AGCS has previously announced a similar partnership with liability modeling specialist Praedicat. While Praedicat focusses on analyzing big data to identify risk trends in liability, Cyence, based in San Mateo, California, is regarded as the leading cyber risk modeling firm. The company has developed a unique platform to assess both cyber exposures and a company’s cyber resilience by collecting and examining data at scale from a variety of public and proprietary sources. Cyence reaches beyond the technical analysis of the IT security of a company into analyzing the human behavioral indicators and an organization’s processes to calibrate cyber risk. The Cyence platform spans from risk selection and assessment of individual companies to risk accumulation and catastrophic cyber risk scenarios and their potential impact.