Quantify your cyber insurance premium gap before the renewal call.

Why a premium-impact lens is the right one for renewal prep

Most cyber security improvements get pitched on probability — "reduces your risk of ransomware by X%." CFOs and COOs nod politely and the budget conversation stalls because nobody can underwrite a probability change. A premium-impact lens does the opposite. It says: deploy MFA on admin accounts, close this many dollars of premium next renewal. Deploy EDR, close this many more. Test your backups quarterly with a logged restore, close another set. The numbers are directional, but the direction is the right one for the meeting where someone has to sign the renewal application.

The premium impact also compounds across cycles. A carrier that quotes you 25% over hardened-posture this year quotes you the gap-narrowed amount next year, and the year after that. The savings are recurring. The control investments are usually one-time deploy + ongoing operate. That ratio is why insurance renewals are the single most underrated cybersecurity budget conversation — the ROI math actually works out the way the security team has always claimed it should.

The 20 controls — and why this specific list

Every modern cyber insurance application asks about a similar shortlist. The 20 controls in the calculator are the union of what we've seen on 2025-2026 Coalition, Beazley, At-Bay, Tokio Marine HCC, Travelers, Chubb, AIG, Cowbell, and Resilience applications. They cluster into six categories — identity (MFA, PAM), detection (EDR, MDR, patching, logging), response (IR plan, tabletop), resilience (backup tested, BCDR, encryption, segmentation), email (DMARC, BEC controls), and governance (training, vendor management, vCISO, data classification, SBOM).

A few controls dominate the dollar impact. MFA on admin accounts is the single biggest driver — many carriers won't bind coverage at all without it. Tested backups is second. EDR (tier-1 product, not legacy AV) is third. 24/7 SOC is fourth. The remaining 16 controls each move premium meaningfully but less dramatically. The ranked gap list on your result page reflects this — biggest impact at the top so the prioritization conversation is obvious.

How carriers actually layer the surcharges

The calculator compounds surcharges multiplicatively, not additively. If MFA-missing is +25% and EDR-missing is +15%, the combined impact is 1.25 times 1.15 equals 1.4375 (43.75% over hardened) rather than a flat +40%. The math gap is small when one or two controls are missing and meaningful when six or more are. Compound surcharges match what we've seen on actual quoted premiums where a stack of weak controls produces an uplift the additive form undercounts.

The estimated premium ranges in the result are still ranges, not a single number, because even with the same control posture two carriers will quote different premiums for the same risk depending on their book concentration, their reinsurance arrangements, and their underwriter's appetite that quarter. The low end of the range is what a competitive market quote looks like. The high end is what a captive renewal or a single-carrier negotiation typically produces.

What this tool deliberately does not do

It does not quote insurance. It does not see your claims history. It does not know your geography, your retention, your sub-limit structure, your named-peril exclusions, or your AI clause language. It does not adjust for the carrier's book concentration in your vertical or their reinsurance pressure that quarter. Every one of those factors moves a quoted premium in ways the calculator can't see.

What it does do is give you a defensible internal estimate of the spread between today and a hardened posture, with the dollar magnitude of each individual control gap. That estimate is the right thing to bring to the budget conversation, to the security committee, and to the broker call. Use the output to prioritize the next 90 days of control investments and to ask sharper questions on the renewal call. For the actual quote, work with a licensed cyber-savvy broker — and use the gap list to tell them what you've fixed since last year, with evidence attached.

Questions