Faced with the explosion of cyber risks and regulatory requirements, the governance of information systems now relies on the cyber insurer as a technological and strategic partner.
The governance of information systems has become one of the major priorities of IT departments. Under pressure, they must guarantee efficiency, compliance, transversality and security of a particularly complex ecosystem of data, solutions and infrastructures.
Facing the rapidly growing problem of cyber risks and insuring yourself against these risks is today no longer an option but an absolute imperative. And for good reason: the LUCY 2026 report notes a very significant increase in the amount of cyber claims in 2025 (+53%). In this context, the relationship between business decision-makers and their insurer is evolving towards a true strategic partnership whose vocation is to mitigate risks and prevent them.
Anticipating risks: a strategic issue associated with governance
In-depth knowledge of cybersecurity issues is part of a global approach to continuous improvement of governance serving the processes of SMEs and mid-sized companies. And we can say without batting an eyelid that governance is strongly impacted by the security policies integrated by the IT departments. But the opposite is also true. Careful, well-documented governance improves the overall security of enterprise systems. It can also be taken care of by a partner from whom, wrongly, companies ultimately expected little in terms of fighting attacks: their cyber insurer.
Traditionally, companies entrusted the management of the financial aspects of a claim exclusively to the insurer. But faced with rapidly changing risks, the role of the insurer has profoundly evolved.
Attackers are now deploying autonomous AI agents to industrialize their attacks. They are also capable of operating in complex environments and automating the entire attack chain (from vulnerability mapping to data exfiltration) with minimal or no human intervention.
Faced with malicious software, capable of adapting in real time, the annual static audit has become obsolete. The modern insurer is therefore transforming into a technological partner capable of anticipating risks through proactive and continuous analysis.
However, this transformation is not universal. Not all cyber insurance players yet have the necessary technological maturity. For this role to become a tangible reality, the new generation insurer must rely on a network of specialized brokers, capable of translating technical issues. Without this shared expertise, the diagnosis would risk remaining theoretical and disconnected from the realities facing companies.
The benefits of value chain and compliance auditing
We will agree that “governance is not just an IT issue”. This is a general management topic. From this point of view, the need to resort to insurance offers new perspectives in terms of governance strategy.
The IS value chain is today increasingly interconnected (business solutions, API, SaaS, cloud). The entrance doors to the IS are multiplying and becoming the preferred target of cybercriminals who exploit the weakest links in the ecosystem. This subject has become critical to the point of now being regulated by the European NIS 2 directive, which requires organizations to strengthen the security of their supply chain and their third-party providers.
In this regulatory and technical framework, the security audit carried out by the insurer is no longer limited to an underwriting requirement, it becomes a valuable compliance and performance tool for:
Proactive detection: highlighting real flaws existing in the system in place, a critical operation, repeated at regular intervals, or even, ideally, in real time. It allows you to act quickly on the IS and avoid any intrusion or exfiltration of data;
A readjustment of the governance policy: based on the evaluation report identifying the vulnerabilities of the system and which benefits, in a transversal manner, all professions;
Support: for constant improvement in the speed of flows, the transversality of processes and the security of systems and data, in the service of the overall performance of the company.
Cyber risk guarantee: new paradigm of the decision cycle
Precise knowledge of the risks to be insured constitutes a fundamental element for establishing a quote and, subsequently, signing a cyber insurance contract. But these risks are often inherent to partner services and solutions that the SME or ETI will no longer have to choose based solely on business functionalities, but also on the basis of its digital risk factor.
Let’s take the example of an SME wishing to integrate an innovative CRM. Beyond business functionalities, the management team must ask itself critical questions: who hosts the data? Where are they located? What is the access management model?
In this context, the risk mapping established by the insurer constitutes a decision-making tool. It helps avoid the scenario where a supplier imposes crazy liability clauses or refuses the guarantee, due to lack of prior audits. Thanks to data from an insurer, the company can compare offers on functional aspects, costs, etc. but also on their real “cost of risk”.
This sometimes encourages him to choose a solution with different characteristics from the one that was initially popular. By adapting its IS and associated governance, the company benefits from a much more secure general environment, reducing its future insurance premiums and the risks of claim rejection.
End-to-end governance
Ultimately, the integration of cloud solutions, APIs and third-party services enriches the IS but continually expands its attack surface. Without governance defined upstream — which now includes the cyber insurer and the broker as high value-added advisory partners — this ecosystem risks quickly becoming out of control.
Auditing the ecosystem value chain is today the real new front in cybersecurity. The role of the insurer with a strong technological appetite is no longer limited to repairing the financial damage of an attack: it works upstream and can thus inform the strategic choices of the company, protect its supply chain and become the co-pilot of its resilience and performance.
