Cyber Insurance Industry Statistics 2026: Premiums, Loss Ratios, and Claims Data

Global cyber insurance premiums reached nearly $15 billion in calendar year 2024 (roughly +7% from the previous year), according to the NAIC’s September 2025 Cybersecurity Insurance Report, even as the US market witnessed its first-ever reduction in Direct Written Premium, with approximately $9.14 billion written in 2024, a 7% decrease from 2023. The fall-rise tension makes 2024 the year the cyber insurance market changed shape: capacity expanded outside the United States while domestic rates softened for the first time since the supplement began tracking.

Behind those headline numbers, ransomware behaviour also flipped. Coalition’s 2026 Cyber Claims Report found that initial ransomware demands in 2025 increased significantly, rising 47% year-on-year, and yet a record 86% of businesses targeted in ransomware incidents refused to pay. Insurance-supported negotiation and tested incident-response plans are showing up directly in carrier loss ratios; the buyer side of the contract is finally pulling its weight.

Key Takeaways

• Global cyber insurance premiums totaled nearly $15 billion in calendar year 2024 (roughly 7% higher than the previous year), with most of the growth occurring outside the United States.
• The US direct written premium for cyber insurance fell to approximately $9.14 billion in 2024, a 7% decrease from 2023’s $9.84 billion, the first decline in the supplement’s history.
• The US cyber industry loss ratio reported to the NAIC increased by 7 points year-over-year to 49% in 2024, driven by increased frequency and severity of cyber losses.
• Coalition’s 2026 report shows ransomware as the most expensive category of cyber claim in 2025, with an average loss of $269,000, and dual-extortion attacks accounting for 70% of ransomware claims.
• S&P Global Ratings projects annual cyber insurance premiums will reach approximately $23 billion by 2026, up from an estimated $14 billion at the close of 2023, representing a growth rate of 15% to 20% annually.
• Allianz Commercial analysis shows claim severity has declined by more than 50%, while the frequency of large loss claims is down by around 30% in the first half of 2025; Allianz Germany data tracks a 3-to-1 cyber resilience gap (cyber insureds’ loss impact +70% over four years vs +250% economic impact of cyber crime).

Editor’s Choice

• The US cyber insurance market held 4,368,614 policies in force in 2024, with the number of claims rising almost 40% to nearly 50,000 reported.
• Munich Re estimates the global cyber insurance market totaled nearly $15 billion in 2025 and anticipates global premium volume to expand to around $28 billion by 2030.
• S&P Global projects the market will grow to approximately $29 billion by 2027, with the fastest growth in Asia-Pacific and Latin America.
• Coalition negotiated ransom payments down by an average of 60%, with successful clawbacks totaling $31 million and a $278,000 average recovery.
• The average global data breach cost hit a record high at almost $5 million in 2024, driven by stricter data privacy regulations.
• US cyber insurance rates declined an average of 5% in the fourth quarter of 2024, marking the first quarterly decrease following seven years of rising rates.

Recent Developments

• March 2026 (2026-03-05): Coalition’s 2026 Cyber Claims Report found a record 86% of businesses targeted in ransomware incidents refused to pay, with initial demands rising 47% year-on-year.
• November 2025: S&P Global Ratings projected annual cyber premiums will reach approximately $23 billion by 2026 at a 15% to 20% growth rate in its Cyber Insurance Market Outlook 2026, while maintaining a stable industry outlook.
• September 2025: Allianz Commercial reported around 300 H1 2025 cyber claim notifications with severity down more than 50% and large-loss frequency down around 30% in its Cyber Risk Trends 2025 analysis (released 2025-09-24).
• September 2025: NAIC documented the first-ever US Direct Written Premium reduction at approximately $9.14 billion for calendar year 2024 in its 2025 Cybersecurity Insurance Report.
• September 2025 (2025-09-23): GAO report GAO-25-108748 noted cyberattacks may not meet TRIA requirements regarding violent or dangerous nature, coercion, or damage location, with Treasury’s federal cyber-backstop assessment still outstanding.

Global Cyber Insurance Market Size and Growth

• Global cyber insurance premiums reached nearly $15 billion in 2024, a 7% increase from the previous year, with most of this growth occurring outside the US.
• Munich Re estimates the global cyber insurance market totaled nearly $15 billion in 2025, with growth slowing over the past three years after an exceptionally steep prior rise.
• S&P Global Ratings projects global cyber premiums will reach approximately $23 billion by 2026 and approximately $29 billion by 2027, with a forecast 15% to 20% annual growth rate.
• Munich Re anticipates global premium volume to expand to around $28 billion by 2030, representing an average annual global growth rate exceeding 10% between 2020 and 2030.
• Allianz Commercial leadership echoed that the global cyber insurance market is predicted to more than double to close to $30 billion by the end of the decade.
• Munich Re estimates that less than 5% (and possibly as little as 1%) of cyber risks are currently insured, a structural protection gap.
• Cybercrime is projected to inflict a global cost of $14 trillion in 2028, exceeding the combined economic output of Germany, Japan, and India.
• The reinsurance segment carries approximately 62% of cyber gross written premiums, with the top ten cyber insurers accounting for approximately 87% of the market.

Source: NAIC, S&P Global Ratings, Munich Re, Allianz Commercial.

Inside that global figure, the United States holds the largest single share, and is the first major market to show its size flattening. The next section unpacks the US numbers that drove the global slowdown.

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US Cyber Insurance Premiums and Direct Written Premium

• The US cyber insurance market witnessed its first-ever reduction in Direct Written Premium, with approximately $9.14 billion written in 2024, a 7% decrease from 2023 ‘s $9.84 billion total.
• US-domiciled insurers alone reported $7.08 billion in DWP in 2024, down slightly from $7.25 billion in DWP reported for 2023.
• Aon reports US cyber written premium reported to the NAIC decreased 2% year-over-year to $7.1 billion in 2024, in line with the supplemental filings.
• US cyber premiums decreased by approximately $169 million year-on-year to $7.08 billion in 2024 for domiciled-only carriers.
• The number of US policies in force decreased slightly (0.03%) from the year prior, with 4,368,614 policies in 2024.
• In total, 218 insurers reported writing some cyber premiums in 2024, consistent with 2023, with 112 writing more than $1 million and 58 writing more than $5 million.
• US cyber insurance rates declined an average of 5% in the fourth quarter of 2024, marking the first quarterly decrease following seven years of rising rates.
• Howden’s analysis confirms more than half of premium growth is likely to emanate from non-US territories over the coming years.

Source: NAIC 2025 Cybersecurity Insurance Report, Aon 2024 US Cyber Market Update.

For a broader context on the US carrier base behind these figures, the pillar US insurance industry data covers the full P/C and life market that cyber sits within. Top-line decline tells one story; loss ratios and claim counts tell the underwriting story.

Loss Ratios and Profitability

• The US cyber industry loss ratio increased by 7 points to 49% in 2024, driven by increased frequency and severity of cyber losses.
• The 2023 loss ratio came in at 44%, in line with 2022 and significantly better than 2021’s 65% and 2020’s 72%, according to Howden’s analysis of US standalone cyber.
• The 2024 result represents sub-50% loss ratio performance for the US cyber market; the carrier base remained profitable despite the rate softening.
• The US claims volume rose almost 40% with nearly 50,000 reported in 2024, driving the loss-ratio uptick.
• Aon Cyber and E&O claims data revealed 1,228 reported incidents across broking clients in 2024, reflecting an increase of 22% year over year.
• Munich Re’s claims book shows first-party claims remain dominant at 62% compared to third-party claims, which cover liability for damages to other parties.
• Munich Re also tracks an overall ratio of 3 to 1 for malicious and non-malicious attributable loss events, with non-malicious events gaining share.
• Allianz Commercial cyber claim severity has declined by more than 50%, while the frequency of large loss claims is down by around 30% in H1 2025, driven by larger companies’ detection investments.

Key finding: Allianz Commercial: in Germany, the loss impact of cyber insureds increased by around 70% over four years, compared with a 250% increase in the economic impact of cyber crime. The resilience gap of more than 3:1 reflects cyber policyholders’ heightened awareness of risk and the effectiveness of insurer-funded incident-response services.

Loss-ratio discipline depends on insurers and policyholders pricing the underlying risk management in insurance accurately at bind. Profitability rests on a single dominant claim driver, ransomware.

Ransomware and Cyber Insurance Claims

• Coalition reports initial ransomware demands in 2025 increased significantly, rising 47% year-on-year, even as payment rates collapsed.
• A record 86% of businesses targeted in ransomware incidents refused to pay in 2025, citing improved back-ups, tested incident response, and insurer-supported negotiation.
• Coalition’s 2024 data showed the average ransom demand at $1.1 million, a 22% decrease year-over-year, with the latter half of 2024 marking demands below $1 million for the first time in over two years.
• Coalition’s 2026 report finds ransomware remained the most expensive category of cyber claim in 2025, with an average loss of $269,000.
• Dual-extortion ransomware accounted for 70% of Coalition’s ransomware claims in 2025, with data-theft incidents more than twice as expensive as encryption-only events.
• Business email compromise (BEC) and funds transfer fraud (FTF) originated 60% of 2024 claims, with 29% of BEC events resulting in FTF, per Coalition’s 2025 report.
• Allianz Commercial confirms ransomware attacks accounted for around 60% of the value of large claims during the first half of 2025, the largest single driver of insured loss value.
• Despite more incidents, Aon’s US broking clients saw average ransom payments drop by 77% in 2024, reflecting improved controls and negotiation.

Source: Coalition 2025 and 2026 Cyber Claims Reports, Aon, Allianz Commercial.

By the numbers: Coalition: successful clawbacks totaled $31 million with $278,000 average recovery, and Coalition Incident Response negotiated payments down by an average of 60%. The numbers show insurer-led negotiation creating measurable buyer leverage at exactly the moment criminal demand inflation accelerated.

Who is writing this $15 billion of premium globally? Concentration data answers it.

Top Cyber Insurance Carriers and Market Concentration

• Chubb led the US market in 2024 with $560,634,065 in direct written premium and a 7.92% market share.
• St. Paul Travelers Group ranked second at $535,426,655 in DWP for a 7.56% share in 2024.
• Fairfax Financial held $360,580,980 in DWP, a 5.09% market share in third position.
• Tokio Marine Holding Inc. ranked fourth with $355,982,823 in DWP and a 5.03% share.
• AXA Insurance Group came in fifth at $340,448,442 in DWP, holding a 4.81% market share.
• The top 5 US groups cumulatively accounted for 30.41% of the market in 2024.
• At Bay Specialty Insurance Group climbed from rank 32 to rank 7 with $280,601,661 in DWP for a 3.96% share in 2024, the largest single rank gain in the top-20 table.
• S&P Global notes the top ten cyber insurers account for approximately 87% of the market globally.

Concentration at the top contrasts with a vast underserved bottom, micro firms, and SMEs.

SME Adoption and the Cyber Protection Gap

• Munich Re estimates the global cyber insurance market was estimated at about $15.3 billion in 2024, less than 1% of the global premium for the property/casualty insurance industry.
• Cybercrime is estimated to inflict approximately $10 trillion in economic damage globally, with most of these losses uninsured.
• Munich Re Risks and Trends 2026 finds nearly 9 out of 10 C-level respondents don’t feel their company is adequately protected against attacks, pointing to a demand the market has yet to capture.
• The same survey reports that around 64% of organisations expect to be a potential target of geopolitically motivated cyberattacks, citing the WEF.
• Howden’s UnitedHealth case study captures the stakes: The company booked $870 million in costs related to the Change Healthcare breach in 1Q24 and estimated they could rise to $1.6 billion for the full year, with no standalone cyber cover in place.
• Munich Re tracks the majority of cyber incidents and claims recorded by Munich Re affect micro-companies and SMEs, despite the public focus on large corporates.
• Howden estimates the SME space accounts for close to half of GDP in advanced economies and represents the largest untapped premium pool.
• Munich Re’s 2026 survey covers over 9,500 respondents across 20 countries, all industries and company sizes, a wider representative base than prior cycles.

Worth noting: Munich Re: in 2025, natural hazards produced losses amounting to $224 billion, including $108 billion covered by insurance, 48% of the losses were insured. The cyber market’s sub-1% benchmark sits an order of magnitude below the protection ratio achieved for natural disasters, framing the size of the gap the industry has to close.

Adjacent insurance lines facing comparable digital-risk pressure include commercial insurance statistics for the broader business-to-business P/C book. Closing that gap will likely require both private innovation and federal policy.

Regulation, TRIA, and the Federal Cyber Backstop

• GAO’s September 2025 report on TRIA reauthorization concluded that cyberattacks may not meet TRIA requirements that an attack be violent or dangerous to human life, property, or infrastructure.
• The same report notes cyberattacks may not meet requirements that attacks be part of an effort to coerce the U.S. population or government, and may not meet requirements regarding damage location.
• In March 2024, Treasury stated it had completed its initial assessment and determined to further explore the appropriate form of a federal cyber insurance response.
• As of April 2025, Treasury had not provided GAO with an update on when it would conclude its overall assessment or communicate the results to Congress.
• Treasury hosted a conference in May 2024 that included three panels of cyber insurance experts to gather industry input.
• The NAIC’s 2024 supplement changed from a two-way stand-alone/packaged split to a three-way primary/excess/endorsement split, increasing market transparency.
• Cyber risk exposure is increasingly shaped by major trends including geopolitics, supply chains, and the sophistication of cybercrime, as well as agentic and physical AI.

Source: GAO-25-108748, NAIC 2025 Cybersecurity Insurance Report, Munich Re Risks and Trends 2026.

Pricing trends now tell the buyer side of the same story.

Pricing, Costs, and Coverage

• Marsh reports a 6% decline in global cyber insurance rates in the third quarter of 2024, with decreases continuing into Q1 2025.
• Europe saw the steepest declines at 12%, while Latin America and the Caribbean saw rates fall by 11% in Q3 2024.
• US rates declined an average of 5% in the fourth quarter of 2024, the first quarterly decrease after seven years of increases.
• Marsh observed broader coverage offerings, increased limits, and reduced retentions across the buyer base, with capacity expanding from both established and new market entrants.
• Allianz’s cyber-pricing data shows 40% of the value of large cyber claims during the first half of 2025 included data theft, up from 25% in all of 2024, driving coverage focus toward privacy liability.
• Allianz observed non-attack incidents accounted for a record 28% of large claims by value during 2024, pulling tech E&O coverage into greater scrutiny.
• Allianz analysis pegs manufacturing at 33% of large cyber claims by value, professional services at 18%, and retail at 9% over the past five years.

Common Questions

Does cyber insurance cover ransomware payments?

Most cyber insurance policies cover ransomware-related costs, including ransom payments, breach notification, legal fees, and business interruption losses. Coverage caps for the ransom payment itself typically sit between $100,000 and $250,000, often sub-limited below the policy’s overall headline limit. Insurers usually require advance notification before any payment; Coalition’s incident response team negotiated payments down by an average of 60% in 2024 (Coalition 2025 Cyber Claims Report).

Why are cyber insurance premiums declining in 2025?

US cyber insurance rates fell 5% in Q4 2024, the first quarterly decline after seven years of increases; and Marsh recorded -6% globally in Q3 2024 (Marsh Global Insurance Market Index). The decline reflects improved buyer cybersecurity controls, a sub-50% industry loss ratio, expanded carrier capacity, and a competitive top tier where the top 5 US groups have steadily lost share since 2018, according to Aon’s 2024 US Cyber Market Update.

What percentage of businesses have cyber insurance?

Penetration sits well below the cyber-risk exposure base. Munich Re estimates that less than 5% of cyber risks are currently insured globally, and the global cyber insurance market represents less than 1% of total property/casualty premiums. Swiss Re benchmarks show 60-70% of large corporates ($1 billion+ revenue) carry cyber cover versus 10-20% of small SMEs ($10-100 million) and 5-10% of micro firms under $10 million.

Conclusion

The cyber insurance market crossed an inflection point in 2024. Global premiums held near $15 billion even as US direct written premiums fell 7% to $9.14 billion, the first US decline on the NAIC’s record; and the industry loss ratio rose to 49%, still profitable but trending warmer. Coalition’s 2026 data captures the buyer-side flip: an 86% ransom refusal rate against a 47% jump in initial demands and an average ransomware loss of $269,000.

Reinsurers (62% of cyber gross written premium per S&P) and the top-ten carrier oligopoly (87% of market share) carry most of this exposure, but real growth depends on closing the SME protection gap that Munich Re benchmarks at less than 1% of property and casualty insurance premium against natural-catastrophe coverage at 48% of 2025 losses. The federal cyber backstop remains in study mode at Treasury, leaving the next phase of growth largely a private-carrier story through 2027.