Sophos this week announced a partnership with Cowbell, a leading provider of cyber risk insurance for U.S. small and medium-size businesses. Customers running Sophos Intercept X Endpoint Security will be able to “opt in” to share their endpoint security health status from the Sophos Central platform with Cowbell using a new data connector, which will become generally available in April.
“Our channel partner steering committee told us it’s tough for clients to get policies,” says Raja Patel (pictured), senior vice president of products at Sophos. “When clients share their security details to Cowbell, they only have to fill out two pages of an online form to get a quote.” Security clients can access Cowbell through the Sophos Marketplace just as Cowbell’s insurance clients can see Sophos in its online referral program, Cowbell RX.
“Our strategy is to move from selling products to offering security as a service,” Patel says. “Customers need a helping hand to keep eyes on monitoring screens 24/7.”
As cyber insurance becomes critical for companies, many carriers have cut their offerings, but Cowbell has doubled down. Cowbell describes itself as “adaptive cyber insurance.” Started four years ago to make the insurance process more efficient and effective, Cowbell brought insurance paperwork into the digital age. “We had to develop technology to be able to issue policies at speed,” says Isabelle Dumont, Cowbell senior vice president of marketing and technology partners.
Sophos, one of the more than 70 tech vendors vetted by Cowbell for its clients, became the first security vendor to send client information, with permission, to Cowbell to speed and simplify the insurance application process.
“We approached Sophos because their target market and customer base overlap ours,” Dumont says.
Cowbell gathers more than 1,000 data points on potential clients during the application process to understand their risks and deliver the proper cyber coverage, Dumont explains. “When we automatically get data from Sophos, that’s much more accurate than paper.”
Insurance is highly regulated, and only licensed agents can offer policies. Cowbell works with more than 3,500 agencies that employe more than 20,000 agents across the country, and targets SMBs with less than $1 billion in revenue.
After policies are issued, Sophos and Cowbell monitor security conditions and report back to the customer when necessary. “Everything we discover we give back to the client to give guidance to improve their cybersecurity,” says Dumont. When clients improve security, they also get better rates and extended coverage.
