Businesses face ‘sharpened scrutiny’ on cyber policies after fridge hacks Insurance Insurance underwriters will scrutinise businesses’ technology more closely when pricing future cyber policies following the wave of recent cyberattacks on European supermarkets. The attacks, which forced retailers in Sweden, Belgium, and Ireland to throw away large quantities of fresh and frozen food after refrigeration systems were switched into defrost mode, and affected a wave of [...]
Lloyd’s underwriters seek to halt £45m legal cover for Petrofac bribery defendants Insurance A group of Lloyd’s syndicates have sought to block £45m in defence funding for two former Petrofac executives facing a criminal bribery trial. The group of syndicates provided directors’ and officers’ (D&O) insurance coverage to Petrofac’s former chief operating officer, Marwan Chedid, and former chief operations officer George Salibi. Chedid and Salibi rely on Petrofac’s [...]
‘Sick at the desk’ workforce crisis costs UK economy billions every year Business Britain’s workforce health crisis isn’t happening on sick leave; it’s happening at the desk, as employees are working through illness and stress. Poor workforce health is estimated to cost the UK economy £241bn in lost productivity annually, according to claims in a new report by healthcare insurer Vitality, with mental ill-health being the single largest [...]
Beazley expands cyber cover for AI malfunctions and regulatory risks September 24, 2026 FTSE 100 insurance giant Beazley has launched a new cyber line for businesses that insures against unintentional regulatory non-compliance and financial and reputational losses as a result of AI system malfunctions. Speaking to City AM, the speciality insurer’s head of cyber risks, Alessandro Lezzi, said the move comes as the firm sees “AI changing the threat [...]
Cyber insurers consider limiting coverage as sector scrambles to price agentic AI risks September 24, 2026 The cyber insurance market is facing a turbulent time as agentic AI hacks pose new challenges and threats. City AM understands underwriters and insurers are considering limiting coverage until they can quantify the risk this tech poses and price it. Cyber insurance has been a fruitful market over the past few years, with a spike [...]
Hugging Face hack spells ’emergency for the City of London’, warns top lawyer September 24, 2026 Everything companies have done to prepare for a cyber attack is now “completely old world” following the OpenAI–Hugging Face hack over the summer, a top City lawyer has warned. The “unpredecented” July hack, in which OpenAI’s model escaped a controlled test by itself and broke into the AI platform Hugging Face, prompted a probe from [...]
Lloyd’s backs £40m transactional risk MGA targeting private capital September 21, 2026 Syndicates in the world’s leading insurance and reinsurance market, Lloyd’s of London, have agreed to provide up to £40m of risk capital per policy to back a new managing general agent in the City focused on the private capital sector. Alpha TR, a speciality insurance managing general agent (MGA), launched on Monday as a Lloyd’s [...]
Drone strikes and noise disputes: The soaring risks of the global data centre boom September 18, 2026 As data centres scale, consume more power, and draw tighter community scrutiny, insurance risks are becoming increasingly complex. As AI infrastructure grows, so do legal risks: large lawsuits involving data centres more than tripled from four in all of 2021 to 14 in the first half of 2026, according to a Howden report. Planning and [...]
FTSE boss calls on City businesses to hire former offenders September 9, 2026 Beazley chief executive Adrian Cox has encouraged City business leaders to hire ex-offenders as he believes in “looking beyond convictions and recognising potential”. The boss of the FTSE specialist insurer, which agreed to be acquired by Zurich Insurance for approximately £8.14bn earlier this year, said: “City employers can transform lives while strengthening their organisations’ access [...]
McGill and Partners staff to benefit from EQT’s $2bn insurance broker deal September 4, 2026 Speciality London-based reinsurance broker McGill and Partners has agreed to a $2bn (£1.48bn) investment by private equity giant EQT. Founded in May 2019 by industry titans Steve McGill and John Lloyd, the firm handles high risks for corporate and institutional clients. In seven years, the broker has grown revenues to more than $250m and expanded [...]