Interview: Travelers Comprehensive Cyber Solutions | Chris McMurray and James Doswell

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Red ribbons part, revealing the Travelers red umbrella logo. A man sits in a studio, wearing a tan blazer and polka dot tie.

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To discuss Travelers Cyber proposition in the UK market, I'm joined now by two senior members of the team. They are Chris McMurray, managing director for Cyber and James Doswell, senior Cyber risk management consultant. Chris, in a nutshell, what's the broad Travelers offering in the UK?

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Chris and James sit at a long white table with the Travelers logo at the front. Behind them, red banners divide a wall of windows, looking out onto the street. Text: CHRIS MCMURRAY, MANAGING DIRECTOR, CYBER. Chris wears a gray blazer and white button down.

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So Travelers have been around for quite some time within the cyber market. So it's a product that originated almost 30 years ago in the US before coming over to Europe some five, six years ago now. And we target the product at various segments from SMEs to midmarket now right through to the large corporate space.

And we offer a comprehensive solution for both first and third party exposures. We also look to prevent loss at source, so we offer a number of loss mitigation services which are available largely free to our clients. But there will always be something that gets through the net and that's why our breach response is absolutely key. So we offer 24/7, 365 days a year breach response with established vendors for everything you need when something goes wrong, when it comes to a cyber incident.

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Interviewer.

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And what are the top cyber threats facing UK businesses right now?

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Chris McMurray.

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I think the cyber threat environment is continually evolving, but there are some constants within that. So ransomware is the one that I think that most people always think about when they think about cyber. And that's something that as I say, it's not going away, it continues to evolve. Clients of all shapes and sizes are caught up in that from SME level right through from various industries. And it's something that as I say, continues to be a massive headache for businesses of all shapes and sizes.

Business email compromise has continued to be on the increase as well, and again, that leads to some of that ransomware threat also within there. And also in recent times we have seen quite a lot of, if you like, old fashioned social engineering fraud type losses, which again, for professional services firms in particular have been a particular source of pain.

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Interviewer: Mark Colegate.

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James.

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Text: JAMES DOSWELL, SENIOR CYBER RISK MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT. James wears glasses, a navy blazer, and a white button down.

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So AI in particular is really speeding things up as much as there's the whole element of developing new content, it's more about the speed of AI is making it so much more efficient for attackers to actually take proof of concepts which are released by genuine security researchers taking that information, converting it into malicious code, and then actually attacking companies in a shorter window than it is for the ability for them to actually apply patches and security.

So from a Travelers perspective, we're looking at new technologies, multiple layers of defence, trying to understand how can we actually mitigate these potential risks to actually address them. And part of that is potentially looking at proactive solutions.

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Interviewer: Mark Colegate.

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And James, you're a senior cyber risk management consultant, what does that role encompass? What should it tell people about the approach that Travelers takes to cyber? 

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James Doswell.

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So it means that Travelers are now able to write risks that previously we wouldn't have necessarily had comfort from. The underwriters review the proposals that come in, they look at the technical requirements, the technical specifications of these companies, and I'm able to review those and actually understand a greater technicality of, is this a good risk?

Is it a bad risk? Is it something that we can actually write? Are we able to perhaps offer proactive consultancy to and get the insured to actually improve their architecture?

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Interviewer: Mark Colegate.

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You've mentioned risk management consultancy there, but what else does Travelers do to help clients mitigate and manage cyber risk?

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James Doswell.

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So we offer the free cyber risk consultancy to the insureds. It allows them to understand their architecture better. Potentially, sometimes we observe holes or flaws or gaps in their architecture, and we're able to offer feedback where sometimes it be mandatory recommendations, sometimes it would be just observational points that perhaps they could improve it by doing it a different way, maybe even cheaper.

And then there's the decades of experience that we're able to bring to the market. So realistically, Travelers is a global organisation. We have contacts through multiple security industries in the States, FBI, NCSC, and that really allows us to bring experience to even the larger risks. And then there's that access to leading experts within the industry is something that is really beneficial to the clients, the insureds.

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Interviewer: Mark Colegate.

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And Chris, you mentioned that Travelers has been doing this for over 30 years, particularly go back to the States, so how much resource can you pull in to the UK from other parts of the country?

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Chris McMurray.

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So we have an established underwriting team within the UK currently. We have expanded that quite significantly over the past couple of years as we've looked to grow and as the book has grown along with that. We do collaborate quite closely with our colleagues in the US as well. And what that enables us to do is get a better understanding of that threat environment, what they are potentially seeing over there and lessons we can learn as we look into our book here within Europe.

So Travelers is very much for want of a better term, one Travelers in that way where we do collaborate, we do share data and we try and keep that consistency, which I think ultimately benefits our clients as well.

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Interviewer: Mark Colegate.

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Chris, a lot of this sounds pretty bespoke. Does that represent what you're doing in the mid-sized and the SME markets?

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Chris McMurray.

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Yeah. So the UK take-up for the SME segment is still thought to be around about 10-12% when it comes to cyber. So one of the areas that we focused on largely has been educating both brokers and clients as to what that cyber exposure looks like and what the benefit of having a cyber insurance policy actually is. And that's quite a long process.

And I think that's something that the market, as a whole, is still working hard on because I think a lot of the time-- and the press, for example-- a lot of the cyber incidents that are reported tend to be in that larger space, and they can be difficult for a smaller client to relate to or they think, well, that's not going to happen to me.

But the reality is, particularly around the ransomware threat, as I said earlier, it's all different size of companies, across a whole host of industries, that are impacted by it, and it's trying to educate those clients that they do have a genuine exposure. And what the benefits of having that cyber insurance policy would be, but also for the broker to have that conversation so they can go in there, they can deliver that message confidently. And if they are put on the spot by the client, they can actually guide them in a better way than what they would do if they didn't have the likes of Travelers who was able to guide them through that messaging.

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Interviewer: Mark Colegate.

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James, can you give us some examples of how you've worked with clients in this space recently? 

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James Doswell.

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Yes. We had a manufacturing industry company, a small SME electronics firm. They had a complex problem, where it was a clean room environment. So with electronics, obviously the dust impacts the chips. So they have rooms that are hygienically cleaned to cater for that.

The problem was normal MFA process, Multifactor Authentication, is done on a mobile phone, and you can't take mobile phones in or out of those rooms. As such, we worked with them to come up with a solution that was actually sufficient and appropriate for that type of environment.

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Interviewer: Mark Colegate.

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Well, that's manufacturing. But what about some of the other areas where cyber is a threat? 

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James Doswell.

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Yeah, we've had law firms that we've looked at. So we had one firm that approached us. They were actually going through a change of managed service provider, and they wanted us to review the managed service provider and understand are they genuinely a good architecture and actually doing what they said on the tin.

Chris, what are your thoughts on that. Because, I mean, recently Travelers took over Corvus. So how does that fit into the mix?

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Chris McMurray. 

Text: CHRIS MCMURRAY, MANAGING DIRECTOR, CYBER.

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Yeah, it's a very exciting time for Travelers. And the Corvus acquisition really gives us an increased scale to really, I think, take a leadership position within the cyber market. There is a host of benefits to that acquisition in terms of the technology that Corvus bring into play that we will look to take advantage of. And of course, the expertise that they bring from both an underwriting the claims perspective that just to continue to improve what was already a very good Travelers proposition.

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Interviewer: Mark Colegate.

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And James, you were talking about some of the sectors where you've helped clients, but do you do much in the software space itself?

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James Doswell. 

Text: JAMES DOSWELL, SENIOR CYBER RISK MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT.

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We do. We actually had a software product. The company actually produce software for the insurance industry. They deal with-- this is on the larger end of the spectrum. They deal with billions of transactions per day. And it was a case of reviewing their architecture. And one of the key things with our risk team in Travelers-- we've got 30,000 headcount globally.

And the connections that the business has with the security industry means that we, even for those larger risks, we're able to provide feedback, input. Our risk team globally has got connections into the FBI, Department of Defense, NCSC. So it's really useful to be able to draw on that when we do have to look at these very significant risks, as well as the smaller end.

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Interviewer: Mark Colegate.

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Well, we are pretty much out of time, but I just want to get a final thought from each of you. In a nutshell, why should brokers consider Travelers for cyber cover, James?

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James Doswell. 

Text: JAMES DOSWELL, SENIOR CYBER RISK MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT.

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To summarise it, it's solutions, expertise, 30 years of experience in cyber, and really understanding that technicality of the cyber risks.

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Interviewer: Mark Colegate.

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Chris?

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Chris McMurray. 

Text: CHRIS MCMURRAY, MANAGING DIRECTOR, CYBER.

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I would sum up as the experience in the market, consistency, and really putting the customer at the centre of everything that we do.

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Interviewer: Mark Colegate.

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We have to leave it there. Chris McMurray, James Doswell. Thank you both very much.

Thank you.

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Red ribbons part, revealing the Travelers red umbrella logo.

Text: Information and opinions contained in this interview have been arrived at by Travelers. Travelers and Asset TV accept no liability for any loss arising from the use hereof nor make any representation as to their accuracy or completeness. Any underlying research or analysis has been procured by Travelers for its own purposes and may have been acted on by Travelers or an associate for its or their own purposes. Travelers is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.