Cyber Insurance Is Getting Harder to Get

A cyber insurance assessment reviews your business’s security controls against what NZ insurers require before they’ll underwrite or renew a policy. NSP’s assessment identifies gaps that could affect your eligibility for coverage or your ability to make a successful claim and produces the documentation that supports your application.

NZ insurers consistently check for multi-factor authentication on critical systems, a documented patching schedule with evidence of compliance, tested backups with offline or immutable copies, endpoint and email security controls, VPN with MFA for remote access, staff phishing training records, and an incident response plan that has been tested. Requirements vary between insurers but these controls appear across most NZ proposal forms.

Most denials come down to controls that were stated in the application not actually being in place when the incident occurred or policies not being actively maintained throughout the coverage period. Insurers have voided policies where application answers about MFA or patching were inaccurate, even when the breach wasn’t directly related to those controls. NSP’s assessment and documentation service is specifically designed to prevent this scenario.

Not always but it significantly improves your chances of being accepted and reduces the risk of a claim being denied later. An assessment verifies your controls are actually in place and produces documentation that supports your application answers. Without it, you’re relying on your own judgement about controls that insurers will scrutinise carefully.

Yes. NSP provides application support – helping you understand what each question is actually asking, prepare accurate and defensible answers, and avoid the mistakes that lead to declined applications or voided policies. We work alongside your broker to give them the technical foundation they need to present a strong submission to underwriters.

A standard cyber security assessment looks at your overall risk exposure across all areas. A cyber insurance assessment is specifically scoped to what NZ underwriters are currently checking for – it maps your controls to insurer requirements, identifies what affects your insurability, and produces documentation in a format that supports your application and any future claim.

NSP is a cybersecurity provider, not a broker or insurer. We work alongside your broker to provide the technical verification they can’t do themselves – confirming your controls are actually in place, documenting the evidence, and fixing the gaps before they affect your coverage. Our NZ-based team has direct knowledge of what local underwriters are asking for, and we can refer you to our vCISO service if your assessment reveals broader security leadership gaps.