In plain English
Cyber insurance is a financial safety net for when cyber incidents cause monetary loss. But insurers increasingly require evidence of specific security controls — MFA, patching, backups, penetration testing — before offering coverage, and may deny claims if required controls were absent at the time of the incident. An IronSights assessment and penetration test report provides exactly the evidence insurers ask for.
Full definition
Cyber insurance covers the costs that follow a breach: forensic investigation, legal advice, notification letters to affected customers under the , business interruption losses while systems are offline, and sometimes payments. The coverage sounds useful because it is. The catch is underwriting.
Insurers now send detailed questionnaires before quoting. They want to know whether you have on all administrative accounts, whether you run regular penetration tests, whether you have offsite backups tested and isolated from your network, and whether you have an that has actually been exercised. Some require evidence, not just attestation. A penetration test report from the past twelve months is increasingly common on that list.
If a claim is lodged and the insurer finds that controls you said were in place were not, they can reduce or decline the payout. Australian insurers have denied claims on the basis that unpatched systems or absent MFA constituted a material misrepresentation. An IronSights assessment and penetration test gives you a documented, third-party record of your security posture before you complete that questionnaire, so the answers you provide are accurate and defensible.