Is Cyberloss a Physical Loss? Insuring the Digital World:
Insurance is big business in Australia and all you have to do is turn on the TV to see the latest insurance products to hit the market. The concept of insurance though centres around protecting against physical loss, whether that be your job, your car or your house.
What about digital or cyberloss though? Can you insure something that is intangible?
Managing Partner of law firm Gordon & Polscer, Diane Polscer, believes that general insurance policies in their current form don’t fit cyberloss in the right ways, however insurance carriers are starting to adapt and create new products to fill the gaps.
However insuring digital goods is still a very grey area.
First-party property policies in most cases require a direct physical loss and the courts are still unclear as to when a digital loss becomes a physical loss. While policies specifically designed for information technology errors and professional services are limited to losses as a direct result of these services.
This leaves a huge gap in the market for the loss of general digital goods. For example the loss of digital currency such as bitcoin. How do you protect your investment in this currency?
It is clear though that the insuring of digital goods is an area of law that is still developing and changing, just not as fast as the technology shaping it though.