2020 was a year of much uncertainty and change. We recognize the challenges this brought to our policyholders and broker partners: significant changes to organizational and operational processes as well as a surge in cyber attacks.
We’ve emerged from 2020 as a stronger coalition at Coalition: we expanded our tools to help brokers explain technical risk and how cyber insurance keeps companies resilient, launched new cybersecurity solutions and partnerships, and expanded to new geographies. We raised new funding and doubled our team in order to accelerate our growth and support a growing customer base. Coalition wrote more new business in December 2020 than in all of 2018. Thank you!
Here are a few reflections on the past year as we look ahead to a strong 2021:
Cyber crime has been on the rise for many years, and still, 2020 saw an unparalleled level of activity as threat actors have exploited COVID-19 and changes in company operating procedures. Ransomware attacks have been particularly damaging. We saw a 121% increase in the average ransom demand from 2018 to 2020, and attackers have become more aggressive and targeted with their techniques.
Coalition approaches cyber risk differently. Our in-house Security and Incident Response Team was able to fully contain 45% of losses for our policyholders in 2020 (meaning no out-of-pocket expense or erosion of their policy limit when claims were filed).
Our policyholders have consistently experienced less than one-fourth the frequency of claims compared to the overall market due to our automated security alerts and proactive security services. We shared these insights in our first annual Cyber Claims Report, and we are regularly updating our Claims Calculator to help you understand and explain these risks.
In 2020, we invested in broadening our product offerings to serve our customers. Here are a few of the things we launched last year:
The cyber market is evolving, but above all, we remain committed to consistency: consistently great products, service, coverage. In 2021, we will expand on all fronts — stay tuned for announcements — and we will continue our mission to solve cyber risk.
Thank you for your continued partnership.