Insurance policies are legal contracts and the terminology used in them can often lead to disputes as to what they mean that have to be resolved by the courts.
This is a working guide to various insurance terms, as opposed to legal definitions, to give a general sense as to what they mean.
Different insurance policies can include and exclude certain risks, or cover them in different ways, which can often the way certain terms are used.
Assured / Insured
Both these terms are used interchangeably, and apply to the name of the business or individual in which the insurance policy is taken out, normally the name given on the proposal form.
This could be a business, company, organization, government department or individual acting as a sole trader or freelancer.
The important thing in terms of cyber insurance is that the policy covers anyone related to the business you may have legitimate access to the companies network or IT systems.
This obviously includes employees, full-time and part-time, freelancers, contractors, interns and volunteers.
The policy may also need to cover the above categories of people working from home, who may be able to access the companies network and IT systems, either on their own devices, or on company devices that they have taken home in order to legitimately work on them.
Some insurance companies are now offering cyber insurance as part of a domestic householders policy.
It is important that if this type of policy is taken out, it specifies that anyone in the house who has a legitimate reason to use a home network is covered, and may include home working that is either essentially self-employment, or hybrid working on behalf of a company.
