Criminals go where the money is, and in financial services the money moves through your systems every minute. One compromised admin account can expose client funds, client data and your licence in a single afternoon.
Cyber insurance for financial services firms and fintechs pays for the response, the fraud losses and the claims that follow. Underwriters set a high bar for this sector. This page explains what they look for and how to show it.
Why insurers look closely at financial services
Financial firms hold client money or the means to move it. They also hold detailed personal and financial data, and regulators watch how they protect both. In the EU, for example, the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) has applied to many financial entities since January 2025, with rules on ICT risk, incident reporting and third-party providers.
Proposal forms reflect this. Many ask whether you carry out regulated financial activity, because that activity may need separate professional or financial institutions cover. Some forms also list payment processing among the sectors that need referral to an underwriter, with exceptions for e-money institutions and account information or payment initiation providers.
For example, a wealth manager in Cyprus with 40 staff and online client portals will face questions about portal security, staff access and how it approves outgoing payments.
The cyber risks underwriters see in financial services
- Account takeover. Attackers use stolen passwords to log in to client accounts and move money out.
- Payment fraud. A fake email from a "client" asks for an urgent transfer to a new account.
- Privileged access abuse. One admin account with too many rights becomes the key to every system.
- API and app weaknesses. A flaw in a fintech's app exposes customer records.
- Denial of service. A flood of traffic takes the customer app offline during trading hours.
- Insider misuse. A staff member copies client data before leaving.
- Third-party outages. A core banking or cloud platform fails, and so does your service.
What underwriters usually ask financial services businesses
- What regulated activities do you carry out, and under which licences? Your licence details and a short description answer this.
- Is MFA enforced on every access path, including remote access, admin accounts and third parties? A configuration export is the evidence.
- How do you control privileged and service accounts? A recent access review shows who holds admin rights and why.
- Do you log security events where an attacker cannot delete the logs? A logging configuration export answers it.
- Do you require dual authorisation and out-of-band checks on payments? Your payment procedure and banking settings are the evidence.
- Do you run EDR on every device, with out-of-hours response? A console screenshot and the response contract cover it.
- How many personal records do you hold? A data inventory gives the number.
- Any incidents, regulatory investigations or fines in recent years? Disclose them in full.
Cover that matters most for financial services
- Cyber crime and funds transfer fraud. Cover for money stolen through your systems or by deception. Many wordings exclude theft by your own staff, so insider fraud usually needs a separate crime or fidelity policy.
- Theft of client funds. Some wordings cover money taken from client accounts you can access, after social engineering against your team.
- Privacy liability and regulatory costs. Claims for failing to protect data, legal help during investigations, and fines where the law of your country allows them to be insured.
- Incident response. Forensics, regulatory advisers and breach notices from the first hours.
- Business interruption and regulatory shutdown. Lost income after the waiting period, including some wordings that respond when a regulator orders systems offline.
- Management liability. Some wordings cover claims against directors and senior officers that arise from a cyber event.
- Reputational harm. Income lost when clients leave after a public breach.
Insurability of fines differs between countries, and wordings differ between insurers. Your broker can confirm how yours reads.
How PrismX helps financial services businesses get insurance ready
- Discover records your entities, systems, data, suppliers and the senior people whose awareness starts a policy clock.
- Assess works through each control, from privileged access to logging, and shows the insurer's view of your answers.
- Bring in your lists: larger firms can bring suppliers and systems in from a CSV or XLSX file.
- Verify stores each piece of evidence, runs an AI check on it, and lets an advisor verify it. Evidence expiry stays visible, such as patch attestations after three months.
- Submission pack: PrismX builds a signed pack with a sha256 fingerprint, so everyone reviews the same record.
- During an incident: in the pilot, PrismX follows the notification clocks in your wording.
- Before you start: the evidence pack checklist lists what underwriters often ask to see.