Story Time – “We wash cars in real life, we don’t need Cyber Insurance”

A cautionary tale for our small business clients out there.

“We wash cars in real life, we don’t need Cyber Insurance”. At first glance, I think most folks would agree with this small business owner. Washing cars and cyber anything don’t seem to mix, if anything it sounds dangerous. For this client, it was.

Sadly, many of the clients that come to Cyber Insurance Advisors are here because they have been burned in the past. They didn’t realize that their BOP (Business Owners Policy) or general liability policy does not extend to their risks of the cyber world.

This particular client owned a very successful car wash. The kind that is always packed with people vacuuming their own car and has a very loyal following in the community. When said client came to us (we’ll call him Bob), he was not a happy camper. Bob said his current insurance agent had offered him a quote with cyber coverage but said that was mainly for their tech-oriented business clients. What that agent failed to recognize was that car washing along with everything else in this world has gone high tech.

Bob’s business is washing cars but Bob’s business is also accepting and storing credit cards, running very advanced machinery connected to computers, and running a successful membership program. These are all huge areas that make this Car Wash tick, and they are also huge cyber exposures! So, when the manufacturer of Bob’s auto wash was hacked on a Thursday evening before an in-season sunny weekend Bob’s auto wash was down until Monday. Bob said he can do $30,000 in revenue on a sunny weekend that time of year, it was a big deal!

If Bob had the proper Cyber Insurance policy for his business he would be covered for lost revenues due to a cyber-attack. The manufacturer who regularly installs patches and updates to client’s machines also did not have a Cyber Insurance policy. If it did, it would have 3^rd party liability coverage but probably not enough for all of its clients which illustrates why you can’t count on someone else’s policy.

We share this story to get you to think—Where are my cyber exposures? You know your business best and the sandboxes you play in. A business without some cyber risk is a rare thing in today’s connected society.

Thanks for reading!

- The Team at Cyber Insurance Advisors, a division of Monterey Insurance Advisors