The international conference entitled “Cyber Risks: Legal Aspects, Insurance and Claims Handling”

On 27 November 2019, the international conference entitled "Cyber Risks: Legal Aspects, Insurance and Claims Handling" was held at the Hotel Baltschug Kempinski in Moscow, Russia.
 

The conference was the first full-scale theme-based event with the participation of leading Russian and foreign specialists in the field of cyber risk insurance and loss adjusting. The participants had the opportunity to discuss current issues, which had accumulated on the Russian market, in an interactive discussion format.
 

The hosts of the Conference were the Union of Insurance Experts and Adjusters (UIEA, RF), AlfaStrakhovanie (RF) Insurance Company and BTVK Advisory LLP (UK).
 

 

The conference became one of the largest events of the last year in the Russian insurance market. The event was attended by more than two hundred delegates. Among the participants there were leading Russian and foreign specialists from various business areas in charge of ensuring information and economic security, cyber risk insurance and claims handling, including representatives of insurance and reinsurance companies, insurance brokers, the insured, risk managers of different companies and independent loss adjusters.
 

 

The moderators of the sessions were Vlad Prikmeta (Director of BTVK Advisory LLP) Sergey Bukreev, JSC KLR (exclusive partner of Sedgwick in Russia and CIS) and Tatyana Lavrova (Deputy Director for Corporate Insurance of AlfaStrakhovanie).
 

Vlad Prikmeta (Director of BTVK Advisory LLP)
 

The conference was opened by the General Director of JSC AlfaStrakhovanie, Vladimir Skvortsov, who noted the importance of acquiring high-quality insurance cover both for the purposes of ensuring the safety of personal data of individuals and for the stable, secure functioning of small, medium and large businesses.
 

Vladimir Skvortsov (General Director of JSC AlfaStrakhovanie)
 

During the first session Tatyana Lavrova (AlfaStrakhovanie) and Sergey Zolotukhin (Business Development Manager at Group IB) presented a newest insurance product and its modern technical capabilities as an illustrative example. The speakers told the audience about their readiness to analyse the degree of resistance to risk of the insured's companies, to form individual insurance programs, to provide immediate response and timely technical support in case of events attributable to insured loss occurrences, to investigate the circumstances and causes of incidents, and to provide practical recommendations for the restoration of their clients' data.
 

Tatyana Lavrova (Deputy Director for Corporate Insurance, AlfaStrakhovanie)
 

Sergey Zolotukhin (Business Development Manager at Group IB)
 

Victor Petrov, Litigation Practice Head at VEGAS LEX Law Firm, described legal considerations relating to cyber risks insurance in Russia and identified potential risks and 'grey' areas that required special attention while handling claims and in disputed situations.
 

Victor Petrov (Litigation Practice Head, VEGAS LEX Law Firm)
 

Vladimir Kremer, an invited independent insurance expert with experience in the major international insurance company and insurance broker which issued Russia's first cyber risk insurance policy in 2013, unveiled the compiled statistical data on the number of insurance policies issued by insurers in the Russian market, as well as shared his views on the prospects for the development of this type of insurance.
 

Vladimir Kremer (independent insurance expert)
 

Ben Hobby (partner of BTVK Advisory LLP) raised the subject of claims handling in terms of financial loss analysis and assessment of coverage for extra costs and business interruption with case histories within the period of insurance, as well as the specific features of identifying plausible causes of the insured's property damage and business interruption in the event of cyber risks.
 

Ben Hobby (partner of BTVK Advisory LLP)
 

Paul Handy, Head of Cyber and Technology Risks, Global Technical Services (GTS) Loss Adjuster, Crawford & Company, told about the Crawford Cyber Solution, a ready-to-use service product for insurance companies and large corporate clients, which had been first launched in the international market in 2015 and was currently being developed as an end-to-end incident management solution. The Crawford Incident Manager service provided a single, end-to-end turnkey solution for incident management response from the first notification of loss through to the recovery of the clients' data and information systems. The service also implied individual claims handling support by dedicated IT specialists, lawyers, forensic accountants, public relations specialists, etc.). Paul Handy further shared examples of effective work of Crawford & Company's incident managers and loss adjusters.
 

Paul Handy (Head of Cyber and Technology Risks, Crawford & Company's GTS loss adjuster)
 

Alexey Sergeev, Director of the Appraisal and Consulting Department, Swiss Appraisal Russia, spoke about methodological difficulties and approaches to the assessment of cyber risks, as well as the relevance of the assessment of intangible assets in case of occurrence of cyber risks.
 

Alexey Sergeev, Appraisal & Consulting Department Director, Swiss Appraisal Russia
 

Niels Smoor, Senior Legal Counsel and Privacy Officer, Sedgwick CEMEA, spoke about the legal framework for cyber risk insurance in Europe. Niels discoursed on the specific features of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which was introduced several years ago in the European Union.
 

Niels Smoor, Senior Legal Counsel & Privacy Officer, Sedgwick
 

At the end of the second session, a presentation was made by Alexey Lebedev (General Director, Matthews Daniel International (Rus) LLC). The speaker told the participants about potential cyber risks in the oil and gas industry, energy and about the specific features of their insurance. Alexey also spoke about the negative consequences of cyber-attacks when they got inside both the computer systems and automated process control systems of enterprises.
 

During the third session there was a lively interactive discussion between the insured, brokers and insurers.
 

Mikhail Vasiliev (Claims Department Head, Willis Towers Watson)
 

Irina Alpatova, Deputy General Director, Corporate Insurance Director, JSC AlfaStrakhovanie
 

Pavel Banykin (Development Director, RusSurvey Group, Crawford Independent Correspondent in Russia)
 

Pavel Volchkov (Jet Infosystems)
 

Nikolai Shchenin (Executive Partner, CUSTOMERTIMES Corp)
 

Alexey Nikonov (Director of VimpelCom Treasure)
 

Sergey Danilyuk (Vice President for Business Development, OJSC InfoTex)
 

Vladimir Kremer (independent expert) and Elizaveta Miller (Head for Risk Analytics & Reporting, JSC National Settlement Depository)
 

The closing speech was made by Pavel Shaptsev, Managing Director of UIEA, Deputy General Director of ISLAB LLC (RusSurvey®), Crawford Independent Correspondent in Russia.
 

Pavel Shaptsev, Managing Director of UIEA, Deputy General Director of ISLAB LLC (RusSurvey®), Crawford Independent Correspondent in Russia)
 

As Pavel noted, the positive feedback received by him confirmed that the main objective of the conference, involving active discussion and exchange of experience in the field of information security, along with the identification of the best practices and insurance solutions with due regard to the specific features of Russian legislation, had been successfully achieved.