Business interruption risks: Companies at the mercy of IT
When a complex information system crashes in our networked world, the consequences may be very serious. For insurers, too, IT risks are an urgent challenge.
IT is developing at breakneck speed, and new devices featuring ever faster processors and larger storage media for increasingly complex applications are being launched almost daily. The programming of these devices can barely keep up with user requirements. As a result, latent software faults creep into the computer systems, often becoming active only when several processes are combined with each other. This in turn has serious consequences, such as loss or corruption of data, failure of entire IT systems and frequent cases of business interruption (BI) triggering huge financial losses.
This focus report presents the insurer's perspective of business interruption insurance conditions and possibilities for an IT-dependent company, especially owing to a non-physical cause, such as viruses and software failure. It concludes that the business interruption risk for IT-dependent companies can be insured subject to a specified set of conditions.
