Cyber risk exposures have evolved dramatically over the past several years, and in 2016, risk management executives named cyber attacks as the top emerging risk to their business. It is vitally important for claims professionals to understand and be aware of the developing risk exposures and insurance products that are being marketed to address them.

But the term cyber itself invites the questions: What is "cyber," what are some of the key risk areas that are evolving around cyber risk, and how is it important to claims professionals?

The International Risk Management Institute (IRMI) defines cyber as, "A type of insurance designed to cover consumers of technology services or products. More specifically, the policies are intended to cover a variety of both liability and property losses that may result when a business engages in various electronic activities such as selling on the internet or collecting data within its internal electronic network."