Insurance Readiness Guide
What Cyber Insurance Underwriters Actually Look For
Cyber insurance applications have become more demanding as claims increase. Underwriters now require specific technical controls before issuing a policy — and those controls evolve every renewal cycle. Here is what most carriers expect.
- 10 minutes
- 5 underwriting domains
- Renewal-ready gap report
Underwriters work from a checklist. The faster you can demonstrate each control with current evidence, the cleaner the renewal — and the lower the premium.
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Average premium hike after a claim without baseline controls
0%
Of carriers now require MFA on remote access as a minimum
0 days
Standard patch deadline for critical CVEs
The Five Underwriting Domains
What a typical carrier evaluates before binding or renewing a policy. Critical items are increasingly the difference between bindable and declined.
MFA & Identity Management
- MFA on all remote access (VPN, RDP, cloud apps)
- MFA on all email access
- MFA for privileged and admin accounts
- Phishing-resistant MFA preferred (FIDO2, hardware tokens)
- Privileged access management (PAM) for admin accounts
Endpoint & Network Security
- Endpoint detection and response (EDR) on all endpoints
- Automatic patch management within 30 days
- Network segmentation between IT and OT environments
- Next-generation firewall with intrusion prevention
- Encrypted laptops and mobile devices
Backup & Recovery
- Regular automated backups of critical systems
- Offline or immutable backup copies
- Tested backup restoration (at least annually)
- Defined RTO and RPO
- Backup encryption in transit and at rest
Incident Response
- Documented incident response plan
- Annual tabletop exercise or simulation
- Defined roles and communication chain
- Incident response retainer or provider relationship
- Legal counsel identified for breach notification
Email & Awareness
- Email filtering with anti-phishing and anti-malware
- DMARC at quarantine or reject policy
- Security awareness training for all employees
- Simulated phishing exercises (quarterly recommended)
- External email tagging enabled
Key insight
Carriers do not reward you for what your security looked like last year. They evaluate current evidence of operating controls — log samples, MFA coverage reports, EDR rollout dashboards, restored-backup tests. Treat your evidence library like a renewal artifact, not a compliance afterthought.
How it works
Score your posture against actual underwriter criteria
Answer 5 domains
MFA, endpoint, backup, IR, email
Score against criteria
Real underwriter expectations
Get gap analysis
Critical, high, and medium findings
Renewal-ready plan
Sequenced actions before next bind
Check Your Insurance Readiness
Free assessment evaluates your controls against actual underwriter criteria across all five domains. Get your readiness score and gap analysis in about 10 minutes.
Start Insurance Readiness Assessment