Navigating cyber insurance in uncertain times - wars, systemic events, AI and beyond

After several years of relative stability for buyers, the cyber insurance market is entering a renewed period of uncertainty. While pricing and capacity remain broadly sustainable, recent events have heightened insurer concern around systemic cyber risk, geopolitical instability, large-scale technology failures and the accelerating use of artificial intelligence in both cyber attacks and defensive systems. A growing number of significant global cyber losses have demonstrated how individual events can materially erode insurer reserves and capacity.

As we move through 2026, cyber insurers are increasingly focused on how to continue supporting organisations while maintaining long-term sustainability. This challenge is amplified by emerging risk drivers such as common software dependencies, cloud platform outages, AI tooling, complex global supply chains and escalating geopolitical conflict. At the same time, the expanding overlap between cyber incidents, financial crime, operational resilience failures and critical infrastructure risks is placing increasing pressure on cyber policies, related insurance programs and traditional policy wordings.

This session explores how these dynamics are reshaping the cyber insurance market, the practical implications for organisations purchasing cover, and what cyber security, legal and risk leaders can do to achieve stronger outcomes in an increasingly complex environment. It will examine how insurers are responding through changes to coverage, exclusions, sub-limits, underwriting practices and claims handling approaches, and what this means for organisations before, during and after a major cyber event.

Attendees will gain practical guidance on how cyber, legal, risk and executive teams can work together to improve resilience, insurability and claims outcomes, particularly where cyber risk intersects with regulatory exposure, liability risk and board accountability.

Key issues covered in this session include:

1. Cyber war, nation-state activity and geopolitical instability – how insurers are responding to rising state-linked cyber activity, the evolution of cyber war and hostile acts exclusions, the difficulty buyers face in understanding coverage during geopolitical events, and the impact on collateral targets.
2. Systemic cyber events – lessons from major technology outages, software vulnerabilities and cloud disruptions, and how these are influencing insurer approaches to aggregation risk, sub-limits, waiting periods and coverage restrictions.
3. The role of artificial intelligence in cyber losses – how AI is increasing the speed, scale and sophistication of cyber attacks, the emergence of AI-specific policy language, and growing insurer scrutiny of AI governance, deployment and risk controls.
4. Blurring policy boundaries – why traditional lines between cyber, professional indemnity, financial crime, D&O and operational resilience are under pressure, and how coverage gaps can emerge across insurance programmes.
5. Regulatory, privacy and compliance risk in 2026 –the extent to which regulatory investigations, penalties and response obligations are covered, and how insurers are reacting to increased enforcement activity globally.
6. Incident response tension points – how insurer-mandated response requirements, panel providers and notification obligations intersect with real-world business, legal and security decision-making during a cyber event.

The session concludes with actionable insights to help cyber security professionals, legal teams and risk leaders better navigate cyber insurance and wider incident response issues.