Report finds ransomware incidents accounted for 41% of cyber insurance claims filed in H1 2020, with the average ransom demand increasing 47%
Context & Ripple Effects
By mid-2020 ransomware had already migrated from IT nuisance to board-level risk — companies mentioned it in over 1,000 SEC filings in the prior year (up from 749 mentions in 2018). This report quantifies how that risk lands on insurers' books: ransomware was behind 41% of all cyber insurance claims filed in H1 2020, with average ransom demands up 47%.
The report reads, in hindsight, as the opening datapoint of a feedback loop. Subsequent coverage shows average ransom payments climbing from $154K to $220K in a single quarter (per Coveware), victims' total losses reaching $365K+ by H1 2023 (per Coalition), and the same surge pushing US cyber insurance premiums up 50% in 2022.
First-order effects
- Insurers holding H1 2020 books face ransomware as their dominant claim category while the size of each demand grows faster than premium income, forcing immediate repricing at renewal.
Second-order effects
- Policyholders feel the squeeze as carriers raise costs and add security requirements just as attack frequency makes coverage more necessary — the dynamic later described as having upended the cyber insurance industry.
Third-order effects
- Because ransomware hits many insured firms simultaneously, it is a textbook case of correlated de-risking: if claims keep scaling, carriers will narrow terms or exit lines, leaving ransom defense to be priced through security controls rather than insurance.
The trend: Ransomware is converting cyber insurance from cheap, broad risk transfer into a costly, conditional product whose pricing ratchets upward with every wave of attacks.