The Cyber Claims Data Is In. Here's What Actually Reduces Risk.
The 2026 Coalition Cyber Claims Report covers 100,000+ real insurance claims and delivers a clear verdict: most cyber losses aren't caused by sophisticated hackers. They're caused by weak identity controls, broken processes, and lack of visibility. Here's what the data means — and how Proactive Risk maps directly to every major loss category.
By Tom Brennan
Every year, cybersecurity companies talk about new threats. Few talk honestly about what actually causes financial loss.
The 2026 Cyber Claims Report from Coalition is different. It's based on real insurance claims — not surveys, not threat intelligence theory. It covers data from over 100,000 policyholders across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Germany. And it delivers a clear, uncomfortable message:
Most cyber losses aren't caused by sophisticated hackers. They're caused by weak identity controls, broken processes, exposed systems, and lack of visibility.
At Proactive Risk, this matters to us — because these are exactly the problems we help organizations fix.
📄 Download the 2026 Coalition Cyber Claims Report (PDF)
Where Do Most Cyber Losses Actually Come From?
According to the 2026 claims data from over 100,000 policyholders:
- 58% of claims come from Business Email Compromise (BEC) and Funds Transfer Fraud
- 21% come from ransomware
- 17% stem from miscellaneous first-party loss — unauthorized access, domain impersonation, system failures
- 4% from third-party allegations including vendor breaches and privacy litigation
These are not edge cases. They're repeatable, predictable failures — and that means they're manageable.
2026 Claims at a Glance
Why Is Business Email Compromise Your Biggest Financial Exposure?
Business Email Compromise isn't a phishing problem — it's an identity and process failure.
Attackers don't need malware. They need a compromised inbox, weak or inconsistent MFA, poor payment verification procedures, and executives or finance users who are exempt from controls. Once inside a trusted mailbox, attackers wait, observe, then manipulate legitimate transactions. That's why over half of all wire fraud claims start as email compromise — with an average loss of $112,000 per incident.
BEC accounted for 31% of all 2025 claims. Funds Transfer Fraud represented 27%. Together they comprise the single largest loss category in the report — and they're almost entirely preventable with the right controls in place.
How Proactive Risk Reduces This Risk
We focus on the prevention and governance combination that actually stops BEC:
- Microsoft 365 hardening and identity protection through ManageIT
- Elimination of legacy authentication and MFA gaps across all users and services
- Monitoring for malicious inbox rules and OAuth abuse
- Secure payment change procedures and executive verification workflows
- CyberAdvisor™ oversight to align IT, finance, and leadership around how wire transfers are approved and verified
Technology and policy must work together. One without the other fails.
Why Are 86% of Ransomware Victims Refusing to Pay — And How?
Ransomware remains the most disruptive event type, but the data shows something important: 86% of organizations refused to pay a ransom — because they could recover without paying. Average demands hit $1M+ in 2025, up 47% year over year. And 70% of ransomware claims involved both encryption and data exfiltration — meaning even restoring from backup doesn't eliminate the attacker's leverage.
The difference between organizations that recovered and those that paid wasn't luck. It was preparation.
Ransomware Reality Check
Organizations with tested backups, strong identity controls, and a rehearsed incident response plan were able to restore operations and walk away. The ones who paid — overwhelmingly — lacked one or more of those three things.
How Proactive Risk Reduces This Risk
We close the exact doors attackers use as ransomware entry points:
- Eliminating exposed remote access or securing it with MFA and conditional access policies
- Enforcing MFA everywhere — especially admins, VPN gateways, and privileged workstations
- Patch and configuration management for perimeter devices through MANAGEIT
- 24x7 managed detection, response, and verified backup validation
- Incident response planning and executive tabletop exercises through PHISHIT & CyberTrain
- CATSCAN® penetration testing to find ransomware entry pathways before attackers do
How Can Your Organization Be Liable for a Breach You Never Had?
A growing share of claims in the report come from vendor incidents — SaaS breaches, API key exposure, cloud service misconfigurations. Even when your own systems were never touched, you still pay the costs: breach notifications, forensic investigations, downtime, and legal response.
If your data lives with someone else, their security posture is your financial risk.
How Proactive Risk Reduces This Risk
- third-party risk management (TPRM) with continuous vendor posture monitoring via SecurityScorecard
- Full vendor inventory, classification, and risk scoring across your supply chain
- Security contractual requirement templates and governance frameworks
- CyberAdvisor™ oversight of vendor security posture and business associate compliance
Why Is Your Marketing Stack a Growing Cyber Liability?
One of the fastest-growing claim categories in the 2026 report isn't hacking at all. It's privacy litigation — driven by web tracking tools, session replay technology, and outdated privacy practices colliding with modern state and federal laws.
These claims are initiated by plaintiff attorneys, not threat actors. They're hitting healthcare organizations, financial services firms, legal sector companies, and any business with a high-traffic website and a marketing team using behavioral analytics tools without proper disclosure or consent frameworks.
How Proactive Risk Reduces This Risk
- Privacy and regulatory readiness assessments through MEASURERISK
- Website and data collection risk reviews aligned to CCPA, NY SHIELD, HIPAA, and state privacy laws
- Alignment between IT, marketing, legal, and leadership on data handling and disclosure
- Ongoing CyberAdvisor™ advisory support for regulated environments navigating evolving privacy requirements
Why Is Spending More on Security Tools Making Organizations Less Safe?
The most important finding in the 2026 claims data isn't a single threat type. It's this:
Organizations aren't failing because they lack cybersecurity tools. They're failing because no one is accountable for how risk is managed end-to-end.
Global cybersecurity spending hit $240 billion in 2026 — up 24% over two years. Yet businesses are two times more likely to experience a cyber incident than they were five years ago. The report describes this as the Cyber Protection Paradox: more tools and more spending aren't making businesses safer. 76% of security leaders report feeling overwhelmed by alert fatigue. 96% of organizations report critical visibility blind spots. That's not a tool problem — that's a governance and accountability problem.
That's the gap Proactive Risk exists to fill.
Which Proactive Risk Services Address Which Insurance Claim Categories?
Every Service Maps to a Real Claim Category
| Proactive Risk Service | Claim Category Addressed |
|---|---|
| CyberAdvisor™ | BEC governance, incident accountability, board-level reporting |
| MANAGEIT / 24x7 MDR | Ransomware detection, perimeter monitoring, backup validation |
| CATSCAN® Pen Testing | Ransomware entry paths, BEC infrastructure, API and perimeter exposure |
| TPRM | Third-party and vendor breach liability, supply chain risk |
| MEASURERISK | Privacy litigation, regulatory compliance, evidence gap remediation |
| PHISHIT & CyberTrain | Social engineering, wire fraud, BEC human factor training |
What Should Your Organization Do After Reading This Report?
Cyber risk is now a financial and operational issue — not just an IT one. The 2026 Coalition report isn't doom and gloom — it's a blueprint. The organizations that stabilized their loss trends moved from reactive, tool-heavy chaos toward coordinated, accountable risk management. They closed the governance gap.
If you're ready to move beyond tool sprawl and toward measurable risk reduction, that's where Proactive Risk comes in.
📄 Read the Full 2026 Coalition Cyber Claims Report
✓ Key Takeaways for Executives
- 58% of cyber insurance claims come from BEC and wire fraud — not sophisticated hacking. Identity controls and payment verification procedures are your highest-priority fix.
- 86% of ransomware victims refused to pay because they had tested backups, strong identity controls, and a rehearsed incident response plan. Preparation is the differentiator.
- You can be liable for a vendor breach even when your own systems are untouched. Third-party risk is your financial risk.
- Privacy litigation — not hackers — is one of the fastest-growing claim categories. Your marketing analytics stack may be your next liability.
- More tools are not the answer. Organizations that reduced losses did so through governance and accountability — not additional software spend.
- Every Proactive Risk service maps directly to a real insurance claim category. Our approach is built on what actually causes financial loss — not theoretical threat models.
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