Internet usage, which has increased in parallel with the rapid technological development, is now an indispensable element for the daily lives of individuals and companies. Number of internet users increased eight times in the last ten years, reaching 48 million users; which is expected to increase further in the coming terms.

As the cyber environment is used more and more frequently and new systems are continuously created to make our lives easier, number of malicious attacks towards information and related systems increase rapidly.  For the last 15 years, most frequent forms of cyber-attacks in Turkey were credit card forgery and fraud, banking fraud, identity theft and several other types of fraud conducted over the internet. During the same term, frequency of cyber-crimes increased by 30 to 40 percent on an annual basis. Despite the precautions against these growing risks, there are still areas to be improved due to costs of required technological investments and consultancy expenses.

Number of insurance products against cyber-crimes increases in parallel

Global volume of cyber-risk insurance premiums is estimated to stand at around 3 billion USD, which is expected to exceed 6 billion USD by 2020. This rapid growth is mainly driven by today’s low penetration rates. In USA, current rate of penetration for cyber-risk insurance is 15 percent; but stands at only 1 percent for the rest of the world. For small and medium sized enterprises, penetration rate stands just below 5 percent. In Turkey, cyber-risk policies are mainly used by large-scale industrial companies, financial institutions and healthcare institutions; and are generally regarded as products supported by foreign markets.

As the awareness for cyber-security has increased over the last 5 years, insurance products and solution services have started to improve in Turkey as well. Such solutions provide advantages especially for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) that make smaller investments in technology and security.

Researches indicate that time spent in social media increased by 66 percent in 2017 compared to 2016, reaching 135 minutes per day. This change only applies to social media usage. Adding email, news, music, vlog, online shopping activities to this equation; an individual spends 5 years and 4 months of their lifetime “online”. People trust companies and websites while they are online and share their personal information (credit card, identity details etc.); they even save them in the system for easy access. This changing and developing lifestyle and trend cause the requirements and expectations of companies for cyber security and crime solutions to change and evolve over time. Therefore, rather than talking about standard solutions, it has become necessary to offer customized products and services.

IPA’s cyber risk and legal protection solutions

IPA’s General Manager, Mehmet Atay, shared important details about the services they offer in cyber risks and legal protection. Underlining that IPA offers cyber-risk and legal protection solutions for both individual insurance market and corporate requirements by predicting market needs since 2015; Atay added as follows: “Cyber risk and legal protection products provide benefits for our customers for 4 different cases, on condition that the risks occur in the virtual world. Our individual insurance solution includes protection in case of stolen or copied payment instruments such as credit card or ATM card, stolen identity details such as citizen ID, e-mail password, or driver’s license, conflicts occurring during online product and service purchases, and attacks towards e-reputation.

SME insurance includes the same benefits, which might also vary depending on the requirements and expectations of the insured company. We offer solutions for stolen or copied payment instruments that belong to the company, stolen identity elements of the company such as logos or brands, conflicts occurring between the company and customer or supplier during product purchase or lease, and attacks towards the e-reputation of the company.

In case our customers encounter one of the abovementioned cases, solution we offer is comprised 3 following phases: legal consultancy, arbitration and judicial process management.

Within the scope of legal consultancy, we analyze the circumstances of companies or individuals and provide them with detailed information about the initiation of the process and their legal rights. For arbitration, IPA lawyers contact the counter party with the aim of meeting them halfway before any legal processes are initiated. If we cannot reach an agreement as a result of the arbitration process, or the situation does not allow for any arbitration to be conducted, we initiate the legal process on demand of our customer and manage the entire judicial process on their behalf. Via our Cyber-Risk and Legal Protection solutions, we offer them management support with the most appropriate process, rather than paying the compensation and leaving them to handle the process on their own.”