Marsh, the insurance arm of Marsh McLennan, is making it more straightforward for small and midsize businesses to buy cyber insurance.

Marsh is a leading insurance broker with more than 45,000 employees around the globe. Besides selling policies, it also provides related consulting services: a company in the process of acquiring a competitor can hire March to see if the deal contains any hidden risks.

Cyber insurance, the focus of Marsh’s new offering for SMBs, gives companies a financial cushion against losses from data breaches. Such insurance can be difficult to obtain for small and midsize firms.

The reason is that companies can only buy the most advanced cyber insurance packages if they have strong cybersecurity controls in place. Many SMBs don’t have those controls, which means they’re not eligible to apply.

Marsh is aiming to change that.

Its new offering allows SMBs to fill out a form about their cybersecurity controls and have the form shared with insurers. Those insurers then provide feedback on what an SMB needs to improve in its operational processes to qualify for cyber insurance policies.

“With their potential insurability, pricing, and scope of coverage at stake, many businesses, especially small to midsize firms, find it overwhelming and stressful to understand what cybersecurity controls they need and which ones to invest in,” commented Tom Reagan, the head of Marsh’s cyber insurance practice in the U.S. and Canada. “Marsh’s Cyber Pathway program will make it easier for businesses to advance their cyber resilience by providing access to the key security tools and capabilities they need as well as insurance coverage that can grow with them as their cyber posture matures.”

Marsh is also touting other benefits for potential clients.

SMBs often send cyber insurance applications to multiple insurers. This involves a lot of manual data entry and quite a few duplicate forms.

For its clients, Marsh is offering a unified form called the Marsh Cyber Self-Assessment. SMBs can fill it out and send the document to all the insurers they’re hoping to work with instead of drafting a separate set of forms for each insurer.

SMBs who choose to buy their cyber insurance through Marsh can also access recommendations on what cybersecurity software they should purchase to decrease the likelihood of a breach.

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