The unprecedented hardening of the Directors’ & Officers’ (D&O) insurance market has put cyber risk front of mind for Australia’s executives, new research from Willis Towers Watson shows.

This year’s D&O Liability Survey, now in its eighth year, found cyber attack and regulatory risk both garnered 42% of Asia Pacific responses, ranking these threats as the highest concerns.

Next was the risk of health and safety/environmental prosecutions (39%) and data loss (37%), followed by the risk of employment claims (32%).

Asia Pacific accounted for 16% of survey respondents while 26% of respondents worked for finance and insurance companies.

Cyber attack was not even on the radar as a top five risk for the first few years of the survey, but since 2016 cyber has ranked number two and this year took the gong for the top worry worldwide.

The increasing prevalence of ransomware, state sponsored cyber-attacks and increasingly sophisticated and directed method of attacks have very much increased the risk for corporates and their directors and officers in Australia, the survey says.

“We’re just as at risk. Cyber is a global issue,” Jill Stewart, head of FINEX for WTW in Australia, tells insuranceNEWS.com.au. “It’s really about seeking the weakest link.”

Ms Stewart says cyber underwriters are reducing exposure to any one risk and introducing sub limits for ransomware, though hardening is not as dramatic as the withdrawal of capacity seen in D&O.

“There is definitely quite a significant shift this year,” she said. “The market is moving very quickly.”

Also notable was that the survey found Australia’s top echelon managers are more blasé about the threat from climate change than their offshore peers.

“For a nation feeling the impacts, it is not as much front of mind as you might expect,” Ms Stewart says.

See Analysis.