Innovation these days is often driven by people’s desire to work, play, communicate and shop online. But with increasing numbers of individuals losing out to scams like ‘Dear mum’ and fake SMS payment demands — to the tune of more than A$3 billion across Australia and New Zealand — many insurers are responding in the form of personal cyber insurance.

In the United States, for example, multiple insurers are offering personal cyber cover as an addition to home insurance or as a standalone product. Others are targeting identify theft insurance: a particularly costly cyber event for individuals, both in terms of the financial losses, and the time spent reporting the crime and addressing the fallout.

Identity theft can result from phishing attempts (where a person responds to a scam email or SMS and provides sensitive information), but also from online data breaches (such as the 2023 Optus data breach in Australia).

These details can be used to access people’s existing bank accounts, open new credit accounts and apply for loans. Identity theft cost Australian citizens more than A$10 million in 2022 and experts believe the true cost is much higher, owing to the complexity of reporting identity theft.

Many other countries have similar — albeit smaller — personal cyber markets. For example, in Singapore, Etiqa and StarHub offer standalone personal cyber products, with StarHub’s cover underwritten by Chubb.

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