For owners + brokers
Cyber insurance renewal — what owners need to know in 2026.
Renewal is the highest-leverage moment of your security year. The application forces a posture audit, the carrier is asking pointed new questions, and the gap between "we have security" and "we can prove security on paper" is the difference between a flat renewal and a 40% premium increase — or coverage denial when you need to actually file a claim.
This hub is for the business owner filling out the application and the commercial broker fielding carrier questions. Four articles, zero CISO jargon, written in the same plain English your carrier uses on the renewal form.
Why this hub exists
Renewal is when carriers separate winners from losers.
Insurance brokers ask carriers about cyber every renewal cycle. Carriers want documented controls — MFA evidence at the identity layer, EDR product names, restore-test logs, an incident response plan they can actually read. Owners scramble in the final two weeks before the application is due and either lie on the form (denied at claim) or pay 30-50% more because the underwriter can't price the unknown.
We help owners answer honestly and reduce premium. The 60 days before renewal is enough time to deploy MFA evidence collection, swap out legacy AV for tier-1 EDR, run an offline backup restore test, and write a 4-page incident response plan that satisfies every 2026 cyber underwriting question. None of that requires a CISO. All of it requires knowing what the carrier is actually asking for.
The hub
Four articles before the renewal call
Read in order or skip to the article that matches the question your broker raised yesterday.
The renewal call
The 5 questions every carrier will ask in 2026
Pull these onto a sticky note before the renewal call. Each question has a "what they're actually checking for" explainer so you know how to answer in a way that scores well.
What did you change since last renewal?
What they're actually checking:Carriers want a delta — new controls, new tools, headcount changes, new applications added. A confident 60-second answer signals you treat security as ongoing. 'Nothing changed' signals stale posture and triggers deeper underwriting.
Show me your MFA coverage evidence.
What they're actually checking:Carriers no longer accept attestation. They want a screenshot or export from your identity provider (Microsoft Entra, Okta, Google Workspace) showing MFA enforcement on all admin accounts and ideally all users. The evidence is the answer.
What EDR product runs on every endpoint and when was the last test?
What they're actually checking:Naming the product matters. CrowdStrike Falcon, SentinelOne, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (P2), Sophos, and similar tier-1 EDR products score well. Webroot, McAfee Total Protection, and legacy AV no longer count as EDR in 2026 underwriting.
When did you last restore from your offline / immutable backups?
What they're actually checking:Carriers want a restore-test log within 30 days. 'We have backups' is no longer sufficient — they need evidence the backups are recoverable, not just present. Tested restore in last 30 days lowers premium materially.
Have you had an incident in the past 24 months — including ones you didn't formally report?
What they're actually checking:Carriers cross-check against state breach notification registries, IRS Form 8038 disclosures, SEC 8-K filings (if public), and a growing set of underwriting databases. Omitting a known incident is material misrepresentation and will deny a future claim. Disclose everything, then explain the remediation.
For commercial brokers
EFROS partners with commercial insurance brokers nationally — your client gets a defensible renewal application, you get an accurate posture write-up to take to the underwriter, and we share the operational lift. Brokers refer in, we close the control gaps that were holding up the placement.
Partner with EFROS →Three ways to get ready before renewal
Quantify the financial exposure, benchmark your posture in five minutes, or book a 20-minute renewal-prep call where we walk through your application question by question.