Enabling Global Cyber Insurance Growth Through Data-Driven Broker Enablement
How Howden's 170-person global cyber practice uses Cyberwrite to quantify risk, equip brokers, and reach the underserved SMB market
56
Countries
170
Cyber Specialists
7+
Languages
Hundreds
SMB Policies Sold
When we started talking to clients, they said, I understand I need cyber insurance. Now, how much do I need to buy? In cyber, we didn't have any tool to quantify the risk.
Shay Simkin
Global Chairman, Howden Cyber
Shay Simkin on the Future of Cyber Insurance
Howden's Global Chairman of Cyber shares why quantifying risk in financial terms changed everything.
A Market at Scale, Underserved at the Base
Cyber insurance is now a $19-20 billion global market growing 25-35% year on year. Howden, one of the ten largest brokers globally with 22,000 employees in 56 countries, partnered with Cyberwrite in 2019 to give brokers a tool that quantifies risk in financial terms and produces client-ready reports on demand in local language and currency.
Cyberwrite is integrated via API into Howden's flagship digital product CyberPlus, a no-proposal cyber policy distributed with Beasley and QBE. The result: hundreds of policies sold to companies as small as 10-150 employees, a segment traditionally too complex or too costly to serve at scale.
Friction at Every Stage of the Broker Journey
Howden identified five compounding challenges that were limiting cyber insurance penetration in the SMB segment:
01
Low SMB Penetration
The vast majority of small and mid-size businesses remained uninsured for cyber risk despite growing exposure.
02
Cyber Must Be Sold
Unlike property or liability, cyber is a product that needs to be sold, not bought. Passive distribution does not work.
03
No Risk Quantification Standard
There was no consistent, defensible way to explain to a client how much cyber insurance they needed or why.
04
Underwriting Friction
Applications with 50-70 questions created friction for both brokers and clients, slowing or killing deals.
05
Broker Capability Gap
Available cyber tools were built for CISOs and IT teams, not for insurance brokers having financial conversations with business owners.
06
Language and Currency Barriers
Cyber insurance operates globally, but most tools only work in English with US dollar outputs. Brokers in non-English markets had no way to generate localized, client-ready risk reports.
Risk Quantification Built for the Broker Conversation
Howden selected Cyberwrite because the platform was designed to translate technical cyber risk into insurance and financial terms that every stakeholder could act on. Key capabilities deployed across the Howden network:
Risk Quantification
Reports expressed in financial loss terms, not technical severity scores, usable by CEOs, CFOs, CISOs, and boards.
On-Demand Generation
Full company-level risk reports generated in 30 seconds with no intrusive data collection required.
Global Reach
Multi-language and multi-currency deployment across 56 countries, with reports aligned to local regulatory and insurance language.
Measurable Value Across the Global Network
Penetration into the SMB Segment
Through CyberPlus, Howden has sold hundreds of policies to companies with as few as 10-150 employees, a market segment previously out of reach for data-driven cyber insurance distribution.
Faster Broker Conversations
Brokers can generate a client-ready risk report in 30 seconds, transforming introductory meetings into data-driven advisory sessions.
Higher-Quality Submissions
Underwriters receive submissions backed by standardised, quantified risk data rather than incomplete or inconsistent applications.
Defensible Buying Process
Boards and executive teams can document and justify cyber coverage decisions in financial terms, meeting regulatory and governance expectations.
Consistent Across 56 Countries
A single platform delivers consistent analytics methodology and report quality across Howden's entire global network.
Growing Intelligence Base
Thousands of reports generated across the network create a growing proprietary data asset that reinforces placement quality and broker advisory over time.
Using Cyberwrite we have sold policies in places that we would never believe that cyber would be sold, to companies with 10 people, 100 people, 150 people. We're tapping into a huge market by making it simple, easy, and understandable.
Shay Simkin
Global Chairman, Howden Cyber