QBE says partnerships involving its venture capital arm and cyber start-ups will provide benefits as it seeks to assist businesses around the world that are concerned about rising risks.

“A key focus for the QBE Ventures team is to seek out early-stage start-ups and investment opportunities where there is the potential to partner during the build process to solve insurance industry challenges and capitalise on new opportunities,” the unit’s CEO, James Orchard, said.

“Cyber insurance is a product with a constantly changing risk landscape and we see a critical role for start-ups to partner with insurers to keep iterating and building for the future.”

According to figures this year from the World Economic Forum, 29% of organisations have been materially affected by a cyber incident in the past 12 months.

QBE has already formed strategic partnerships with companies including CYGNVS, illuminr and Converge, each with capabilities to help predict, prevent and respond to cyber incidents.

Global head of cyber Serene Davis says traditional cover has often focused on tools within dedicated teams, but threats are a company-wide challenge and leaders across an organisation need ways to reduce the severity of incidents and ensure operations can continue.

“With an innovative product like cyber insurance, QBE Ventures has been a critical partner for the global cyber team to support the development of the product line by scoping out emerging cyber technologies to support an entirely new way of doing business,” she said.

QBE, which in July launched its first global cyber product, QCyberProtect, sees opportunities to pilot new technology in different regions before rolling them out at a larger scale.

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