---
title: "Cyber insurance renewal in 2026: what changed on carrier applications"
url: https://insuranceposture.com/resources/cyber-insurance-renewal-2026-what-changed
category: "Resources, market note"
updated: 2026-09-26
---

# Cyber insurance renewal in 2026: what changed on carrier applications

URL: https://insuranceposture.com/resources/cyber-insurance-renewal-2026-what-changed
Section: Resources, market note

Rates fell for the twelfth consecutive quarter, and the application got harder to answer. The two facts are not in tension: carriers are competing on price and limit, not on the control questions.

SecValley research team. Published 2026-09-26.

SecValley is not an insurance broker, an agent, a carrier, or a law firm, and holds no producer licence. This page describes publicly reported market conditions and how application questions are commonly framed; it is not insurance advice, not legal advice, and not a coverage determination.

## Summary

The price of cyber cover kept falling through 2026, and the proof behind each answer kept getting narrower. Cyber rates were down 4 percent globally in the second quarter of 2026, the twelfth consecutive quarterly decline, and down 2 percent in the US. What changed on the form is not the subject matter but the standard of evidence: the multi-factor authentication question now asks which method and which accounts rather than yes or no, the backup question asks for the date of the last successful restore test, the endpoint question asks for a coverage percentage rather than a product name, and a new block asks what the organization does with generative AI.

## What the market actually did

Marsh's Global Insurance Market Index for the second quarter of 2026 put global commercial insurance rates down 6 percent, with cyber down 4 percent after a 5 percent fall in the first quarter: twelve consecutive quarters of cyber declines. By region, down 14 percent across India, the Middle East and Africa, down 10 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean, down 6 percent in the Pacific, and down 2 percent in the US. Marsh attributed the decline to stable capacity and continuing high insurer competition. Competition is spent on price, limit and occasionally retention, rarely on the control questions.

## Why the questions moved: what claims did

Coalition's 2026 Cyber Claims Report, covering full-year 2025: initial ransom demands rose 47 percent year over year, a record 86 percent of affected businesses refused to pay, business email compromise and funds transfer fraud together accounted for 58 percent of reported incidents, and 52 percent of funds transfer fraud claims began as business email compromise. Ransomware remained the most expensive claim type at an average loss of 269,000 dollars; the average business email compromise loss rose 28 percent to 27,000 dollars. Losses arrive through email and through the ability to restore.

## The identity question got sharper

Cisco Talos found authentication abuse in 65 percent of the incidents its response team handled in the second quarter of 2026, up from 35 percent the quarter before, with attackers defeating MFA through adversary-in-the-middle proxies, stolen session tokens, MFA fatigue and self-enrolled devices. A bare yes has lost most of its underwriting value. A 2026 form reaches for: which method is enforced and whether SMS or voice codes are still accepted anywhere; which account populations are covered, including privileged, service and guest accounts; how many standing exceptions exist, counted; whether legacy authentication is blocked; and whether a stolen session token is constrained by device compliance or sign-in risk. Answer in ratios and method names.

Which questions a given carrier asks varies by carrier, programme and revenue band. The groupings here are an editorial reading of how US cyber submissions are commonly framed in 2026; no carrier has reviewed or endorsed them.

## The backup question is now a restore-test question

What tightened in 2026 is the follow-up to immutability: the date of the last successful restore test, what was restored, and how long it took. With 86 percent of businesses refusing to pay, a carrier's ransomware exposure is essentially the cost and duration of recovery, so the restore test prices the claim. Two sub-questions travel with it: whether backup administration is separate from the production directory, and whether retention outlasts intrusion dwell time.

## Endpoints: a percentage, not a product name

What percentage of endpoints have the agent deployed, whether servers are included, and whether alerts are monitored outside business hours. Coverage percentage is readable from the environment; monitoring is attested. Keep them apart.

## Funds transfer: the question follows the loss

With BEC and funds transfer fraud at 58 percent of incidents, payment-process questions are no longer a formality: out-of-band verification of any change to payee bank details, a named threshold above which a second approver is required, and verification against a number already on file rather than one supplied in the request.

## The new block: generative AI

Verisk's ISO filed three generative AI exclusion endorsements for commercial general liability, CG 40 47, CG 40 48 and CG 35 08, effective January 2026. The broad form removes bodily injury, property damage, and personal and advertising injury arising out of generative artificial intelligence; the narrow variant removes personal and advertising injury alone. These are general liability forms rather than cyber forms. Cyber and technology errors and omissions wording is moving more quietly, through appetite questions and endorsements, so an inventory of AI tools in use and of what data reaches them is now part of a submission. Whether a given policy excludes an AI-related loss is a wording question for coverage counsel.

## Which 2026 answers you can verify, and which stay attested

Editorial assessment for a Microsoft 365, Entra ID and Azure estate. Not a carrier statement.

| 2026 application answer | Evidence state | What the evidence is |
|---|---|---|
| MFA method and coverage per account population | Verified | Policy assignments and per-account registration read from the directory |
| Legacy authentication blocked | Verified | Tenant policy state and sign-in log evidence |
| Standing MFA exceptions, counted | Verified | Policy exclusion lists |
| Privileged account inventory and standing access | Verified | Role assignments, eligible versus active |
| EDR deployment percentage | Verified | Enrolled device count against inventory |
| EDR monitored outside business hours | Attested | Statement by the owner or the provider's contract |
| Cloud backup immutability and retention | Partly verifiable | Settings are readable; off-cloud copies are attested |
| Date of last successful restore test | Attested | A dated statement, unless the restore was logged |
| Email authentication and anti-spoofing posture | Verified | Published DNS records and tenant protection policies |
| Out-of-band verification of payee changes | Attested | Written procedure plus the owner's statement |
| Generative AI tools in use and data reaching them | Partly verifiable | Application consent and integration inventory; unsanctioned use is attested |
| Prior incidents and known circumstances | Attested | Statement by those with relevant knowledge |

## What to do before the next renewal

- Retrieve last year's completed application and supplemental. It is the only document that tells you what you already represented.
- Re-read each prior answer against the live environment and write the number rather than the yes. Where the reading disagrees with last year's answer, that is the finding.
- Give every attested answer a named owner and a date.
- Where a gap is real, let the broker carry it into the negotiation with a remediation date attached. An accurate no with a plan prices better than a yes a forensic report contradicts.

The [renewal readiness checklist](/resources/cyber-insurance-renewal-checklist) lays this out as a 90-day sequence. The [question library](/cyber-insurance-questionnaire) works through the individual questions and where the evidence lives.

A softer market changes what an answer costs at quoting time, not what it costs at claim time. An application answer is ordinarily a representation the carrier relies on, and [materiality](/glossary/materiality) asks whether an accurate version would have changed the decision or the terms, including the retention and sublimits a competitive market just handed you.

## Frequently asked

### Did cyber insurance get cheaper in 2026?

On average yes. Cyber rates were down 4 percent globally in the second quarter of 2026, the twelfth consecutive quarter of declines, with the US down 2 percent and the widest fall, 14 percent, across India, the Middle East and Africa. Overall commercial rates fell 6 percent. An average is not a quote.

### If rates are falling, why is the application harder?

Price and underwriting moved in different directions. Capacity and competition pushed rates down while claims kept concentrating on a small number of controls, so carriers compete on price and limit rather than on the control questions, and the questions became narrower: a method rather than a yes, a percentage rather than a product name, a date rather than a policy document.

### Does answering yes to multi-factor authentication still satisfy the MFA question?

Less often than it did. With authentication abuse in 65 percent of Talos incident response engagements in the second quarter of 2026, a yes covering 90 percent of accounts with SMS codes describes a different risk than a phishing-resistant method with no standing exclusions, and the 2026 form is written to tell them apart.

### Is there a new artificial intelligence question on insurance applications in 2026?

There is new AI wording in the market: ISO's CG 40 47, CG 40 48 and CG 35 08 generative AI exclusions for commercial general liability, effective January 2026. They are general liability rather than cyber forms, but submissions now more often ask which AI tools are in use and what data reaches them.

### Which 2026 answers can be verified from the environment?

Most of the identity and endpoint block: MFA method and coverage per account, legacy authentication, standing exceptions, privileged account inventory, EDR deployment percentage, mailbox auditing, email authentication records, and cloud backup immutability and retention. Restore-test dates, out-of-hours monitoring, payment callback procedures and prior incident knowledge remain attested.

### Should a softer market change how a renewal is prepared?

Only in what it is worth asking for. A submission whose control answers are evidenced is what lets a broker ask for the limit increase or retention reduction the market is currently willing to give.

## Sources

- Marsh, Global commercial insurance rates fall 6 percent in the second quarter of 2026 (Global Insurance Market Index Q2 2026): https://www.marsh.com/en/corp/about/news/global-commercial-insurance-falls-6-percent-q2-2026.html
- Reinsurance News, Abundant capacity and competition drive 6 percent global commercial insurance rate decline in Q2 2026: https://www.reinsurancene.ws/abundant-capacity-and-competition-drive-6-global-commercial-insurance-rate-decline-in-q226-marsh/
- Coalition, 2026 Cyber Claims Report (5 March 2026): https://www.coalitioninc.com/announcements/2026-cyber-claims-report
- Cisco Talos, IR Trends Q2 2026: https://blog.talosintelligence.com/ir-trends-q2-2026/
- Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America (Virtual University), Verisk to roll out new general liability exclusions for generative AI exposures: https://www.independentagent.com/vu_resource/verisk-to-roll-out-new-general-liability-exclusions-for-generative-ai-exposures/
- Gallagher, ISO introduces generative AI exclusion in commercial general liability policies: https://www.ajg.com/news-and-insights/iso-introduces-generative-ai-exclusion-in-commercial-general-liability-policies/

Sources are cited only for the facts attributed to them. The publishers listed are unaffiliated with Insurance Posture and SecValley, have not reviewed or endorsed this page, and their inclusion implies no relationship.