‘92pc businesses have poor cyber security’

A staggering number of businesses have suffered from poor cybersecurity, according to the CEO of the world’s oldest insurance market.

Recent Lloyd’s of London data revealed that 92 percent of businesses asked had experienced a breach, Inga Beale, CEO of Lloyd’s, told CNBC.

“Apart from businesses in the US, there is not a lot of take up of cyber insurance,” Beale detailed, despite the problem “affecting almost every single business because of technology these days.”

With regards to the cost of insurance premiums, “reputational damage is usually the thing that’s most difficult to quantify,” Beale added. But, she said that by taking out cyber insurance, firms can essentially “limit (their) share price reduction by the action (they) take.”

Beale also discussed how her historically London-based company was dealing with Brexit, explaining that “we are looking at various different countries and their regimes to relocate some people into the EU.”

While Beale qualified the relocation strategy by saying that “11 percent of our business comes from the EU, excluding the UK,” she did add that just under five percent of total revenues would be directly impacted by Brexit.

Despite the proposed relocation of some of the business, Beale mitigated any suggestion that the traditionally London-based Lloyd’s would substantially move away from the UK, confirming that “well over 90 percent of the businesses that Lloyds writes, we’ll still be able to from London.”