A logistics business runs on timing. If the transport management system stops for a day, trucks sit in the yard, customers miss deliveries and penalty clauses start to bite.
Cyber insurance for logistics companies pays for the response, the downtime and the fraud losses that follow. Underwriters look at this sector with extra care. Here is why, and what they ask.
Why insurers look closely at logistics and transport
Logistics firms sit in the middle of other companies' supply chains. You connect to customers, carriers, ports and customs systems, often through direct data links. An attack on you can spread to them, and an attack on them can stop you.
Many firms also run operational technology: warehouse sorters, scanners, conveyors and fleet telematics. Some proposal forms ask you to confirm that your main activity is outside sectors that rely on operational technology, and some of those lists name transport and infrastructure. An answer that puts you in that group usually sends the application to an underwriter for referral, and the result varies by insurer.
For example, a freight forwarder with 60 staff and one automated warehouse should expect questions about how the warehouse network connects to the office network and the internet.
The cyber risks underwriters see in logistics and transport
- Fake carrier fraud. A criminal poses as a new haulier, collects a load and disappears.
- Invoice manipulation. A real carrier's email account is taken over, and the next invoice carries new bank details.
- Ransomware on core systems. The transport or warehouse management system gets encrypted, and dispatch stops.
- Spread through customer links. Malware moves from your systems into a customer's systems through a shared connection.
- Warehouse automation attacks. A compromise reaches the systems that run sorters and conveyors.
What underwriters usually ask logistics and transport businesses
- What is your primary activity, and do you run SCADA, industrial control systems or other operational technology? Describe the systems honestly, with a short list.
- Is your operational technology separate from your office IT and the internet? A network diagram and firewall rules are the evidence.
- Is MFA on for every user, including remote access, depots and third parties? A console export answers it.
- How do you check new carriers and bank detail changes? A written onboarding check and a call-back procedure on a known number help here.
- Do you expose any remote access to the internet without a protected gateway? An external scan result shows the answer.
- Which hosted providers run your key systems, and do your contracts give you outage reports? A supplier register and contract clauses cover it.
- Can you calculate a business interruption loss? Show how finance would prove lost income, using sales records and contracts.
- Do you keep backups offline, with a restore test in the last six months? A dated test record is the evidence.
Cover that matters most for logistics and transport
- Physical goods fraud. Some wordings cover goods sent to the wrong party after social engineering, often at cost price.
- New vendor fraud and funds transfer fraud. Cover for payments to a fake supplier or a criminal posing as a real one. Check the sublimit.
- Business interruption and continuity costs. Lost income after the waiting period, plus extra costs such as hired vehicles or contract staff to keep deliveries moving.
- Dependent business interruption. Income lost when a hosted provider you rely on fails. Some wordings need a written root cause report from that provider.
- Network security liability. Claims from customers when malware spreads from your systems to theirs.
- Contingent bodily injury. A few wordings cover injury caused by a cyber event where no other policy responds.
Many wordings exclude regional outages of the internet, telecoms, power or GPS. For example, a nationwide GPS failure that stops your tracking would usually fall outside cyber cover. Theft of the cargo itself usually belongs under a goods in transit or cargo policy. Your broker can show where each loss would land.
How PrismX helps logistics and transport businesses get insurance ready
- Discover records your depots, systems, operational technology, data, suppliers and customer links.
- Assess checks each control, including the separation of operational technology, and shows how your answers read on the insurer's question set.
- Verify gives each document you upload, such as your network diagram and carrier onboarding procedure, an AI check and advisor verification. It also runs checks from outside on your internet-facing systems.
- Submission pack: PrismX builds a signed pack with a sha256 fingerprint.
- During an incident: in the pilot, PrismX tracks the notification clocks and rules in your wording. The ransomware first 72 hours checklist shows that first stretch.