The hottest topic in the insurance world today is cyber risk insurance, or coverage for the response to and fallout from cyber crime and breaches. As Reuters recently highlighted, the cyber insurance market is set to double in 2014 over 2013 – heady times indeed for a traditionally slow-growth industry in search of new markets. The need for cyber insurance has never been more acute, with numerous, massive incidents at companies like Target (whose CEO subsequently lost his job) and eBay, as well as government agencies including the Office of Personnel Management.  

Although these high–profile breaches have led to skyrocketing interest in cyber insurance, however, they have also highlighted a glaring weakness in insurance companies' ability to price – and therefore offer – such coverage: the lack of incident resolution expertise, technology and processes among clients requesting coverage.

2014 has already been a banner year for hacking activity leading to major cyberbreaches, from the aforementioned eBay and Target breaches – a trend which hit fellow retailers Neiman Marcus and Michaels Stores – to the alleged Chinese hack into the U.S. government's Office of Personnel Management's systems. According to IDG, the first half of 2014 saw a 21% increase in data breaches over the same period in 2013. At this pace, 2014 will easily eclipse 2010 as the worst year on record for data breaches.