French multinational Insurance Company AXA has publicly announced that it will not issue any reimbursements for the victims of Ransomware attacks in France. However, the company has clarified in its public statement that its new update is applicable only for new policies and will not imply for the ones that were taken before March 2021.
AXA that is one among the top 5 insurance companies in Europe has issued the statement citing to the orders issued by the French Justice and Cybersecurity Officials during a round table conference of the Senate in Paris that insurance firms should stop reimbursing insurance claims filed by businesses that were hit by ransomware.
Axa’s statement says that they don’t pay and will never pay for cyber crimes involving ransomware as per the sentence issued by prosecutor Johanna Brousse.
Christine Weirsky, a spokesperson of AXA, added in her official announcement that the latest policy update will only apply to France and will not include existing policies.
According to a study carried out by Emsisoft, cyber related crimes have fetched a loss of $5.5 billion last year and included victims from all industries like healthcare, finance, education and local governments.
AXA also offers insurance coverage for cyber crimes in United States and has reiterated that the latest rule will not apply for ransomware attacks that involved state funded indulgence from adversaries such as Russia and China where both nations are seen breaching networks and planting malware into the critical infrastructure to bring the entire nation to its knees.
Note- All these days ransomware hit companies were bowing down to the demands of hackers as they were not paying the ransom amount from their pockets as it was covered under a cyber insurance policy. But now, the situation might change in France as businesses will think twice before considering such demands and will instead take proactive measures to curb such issues beforehand- thus discouraging crime.
