How Bad Can Systemic Cyber Get?

What does a comparison of the scale of natural activity data to cyber event data suggest about the risks that cyber could pose to the global insurance market?

1. The prospective scale of systemic cyber has largely relied on hypotheticals

2. Many believe that “the big one” has yet to come, albeit without supporting evidence

3. Natural disaster losses suggest that the potential quantum for systemic cyber may be much lower than many fear, given the wide disparity seen during peak years of cyber risk (1999-2004)

4. Although there is no direct correlation between natural disaster and cyber economic losses, the sheer magnitude of the former (and attendant insurance market activity) suggests that a smaller and declining magnitude of economic threat in the latter speaks not just to insurability but also remoteness of risk