Hiscox Enhances Security Incident Response Product for Businesses

Hiscox has enhanced its Security Incident Response (SIR) product to provide additional protection for ‘business integrity risks’ including corruption and fraud. The new SIR policy also includes cover for expenses incurred by a business when dealing with an insured event.

SIR – originally launched in 2017 – supports businesses in the management of a range of security and crisis events from the impact of terrorism, through to extortion risks. The addition of ‘business integrity risks’ to the policy is a response to the growing threat to multi-national businesses from risks such as bribery, agent misconduct, contract and procurement fraud, embezzlement, social engineering and money laundering.

As well as business integrity risks, the revised wording for SIR now also provides reimbursement for expenses incurred during a crisis; this could include temporary physical security measures or the deployment of staff to an incident location. The cover also includes a new, fourth trigger, which responds on the ‘allegation’ of an insured event having occurred. This complements the pre-incident response that SIR provides to clients, enabling them to use the policy to mitigate an incident at its earliest stages, or even to help avoid an insured event altogether. SIR also provide clients with access to crisis management consultancy Control Risks.

According to Gareth Bateman, product director for SIR, enhanced product provides cover for 19 additional insured events, with a focus on business integrity risks such as bribery and corruption, embezzlement, and financial statement fraud. ”

Security Incident Response (SIR) helps businesses protect their people, operations, brand, and reputation by complementing existing business security resources or, where necessary, acting as a standalone security function.

SIR is available to organizations of any size – from small and medium sized businesses up to larger multi-nationals – with incident response, crisis management, strategic advice and recovery services for a wide range of threats including criminal, political, terrorism, political violence, and business integrity risks as well as information risks, kidnap, detention and extortion risks. It also provides the resources to help businesses build sophisticated resilience programmes to prevent incidents occurring.

The policy provides exclusive access to leading global risk consultancy Control Risks and includes cover for all of Control Risks’ costs to help businesses manage a crisis, including the deployment of response consultants and technical experts, as well as post-incident reporting and remediation to ensure a smooth return to business as usual.

Hiscox is a global specialist insurer, headquartered in Bermuda offering a range of specialist insurance for professionals and business customers as well as homeowners.