Landry was working in his busy San Antonio computer repair shop just like any other day. He was juggling a dozen different repairs and backups when he went to collect a payment for a data recovery job he had just finished up. The system was offline.
Landry is sharp, good with people, and his team turns around jobs fast. Customers love the place. But doing those things without being able to collect payments through his card reader made it a little difficult for things to continue to run smoothly.
He thought this issue would be a one off and had his team continue their work. He would collect payments later because of the relationships he had with clients. But when his card reader couldn’t take payments for seven straight days, things got real quiet, real fast.
He thought his business insurance would help cover the lost income. He had a policy. It said “Business Interruption” on the paperwork. Sounded like that should do the trick.
It didn’t.
When we looked at his coverage, he didn’t have cyber liability insurance on the policy. As a result, he didn’t have dependent Business Interruption protection to kick in when the third-party system you rely on goes down because of a cyber attack.
He was on the hook for all of it.
And here’s the thing. Landry’s not the only one. Most Texas business owners don’t realize their coverage has these kinds of gaps until something breaks. And Texas business owners need to know before it’s too late.
Business Interruption sounds like it should help any time your business is forced to shut down. That would make sense to most folks. But it only applies to specific problems listed in your policy, and this was something that Landry had not considered.
If cyber liability coverage isn’t part of the policy, Business Interruption won’t cover losses caused by a data breach, hack, ransomware attack, or system failure. That includes income you lose while you're waiting for third party payment systems, websites, or customer portals to come back online.
In Landry’s case, the issue wasn’t a fire or a busted water pipe, which was covered by his general business insurance policy. It was a third-party tech provider that froze up after getting hit by a cyber attack. Since his business owner's policy did not have cyber coverage, the insurance company adjuster told him he was out of luck.
Landry’s shop wasn’t hacked. But his payment processor was.
As Software as a Service usage continues to rise across Texas businesses, you have risks that are out of your control. The data breach, DDoS attack, phishing schemes, and other hacking incidents can happen to the companies your business contract with that can produce devastating cyber threats to your business.
Landry found out these are dependent or “third-party” business interruption losses. When it happens directly to your network, customer data, or devices, it is covered by first-party coverage. Many business owners like Landry just assume that these third-party cyber incidents are covered the same way. But you're stuck unless your cyber liability insurance policy includes this very specific kind of protection.
He relied on another company’s tech system to keep his revenue flowing. When it went down, not having this as part of a cyber liability package meant his risk management had a massive hole in it.
It’s easy to overlook this because most business owners assume if they didn’t do anything wrong in a cyber attack, they’ll be covered. The truth is, you can follow cybersecurity best practices and still get hit hard if someone else’s system goes down and your cyber liability insurance isn’t built for that kind of loss.
Even if you have done everything correctly and your Business Interruption coverage includes cyber coverage and third-party events, the policy probably won’t start paying right away.
Most of the time, there’s a waiting period. Sometimes it’s six hours. Sometimes it’s twelve. In some cases, it can be a full day or more. This is similar to a deductible. That means you could be offline for a while before the insurance company even starts counting the loss.
If you’re only down for a few hours, you might not get anything at all. If it stretches into days, like what happened to Landry, it can take a serious chunk out of your revenue.
But again, none of that matters if the right kind of cyber liability insurance coverage wasn’t on the policy to begin with.
The fix here isn’t complicated. You don’t need to learn insurance lingo or memorize exclusions. You just need someone who actually understands how Business Interruption and cyber liability insurance work together.
That’s exactly what we help Texas business owners do every day when providing them with the Promise of Certainty.
With our True Texas Cyber Insurance program, we look at the real risks you face. Not just what sounds good on paper. We help you build a Cyber Insurance Package that actually works when the problems show up.
If you're not sure whether your Business Interruption coverage includes the right cyber liability protection, we’ll show you. We’ll walk through your policy, explain what it really says, and let you know exactly what to fix.
Landry didn’t do anything wrong. He thought he was protected. Most business owners do.
But cyber insurance policies are built on details. And unless you’ve got someone in your corner who understands what those details actually mean, you’re stuck guessing. That's why it is so important to work with an experienced cyber liability insurance agent who specializes in Texas businesses.
True Texas Cyber Insurance is built to stop the guessing. It's built to make sure you know exactly where you stand before trouble shows up.
Click the button below and let’s walk through it together. It’s quick, it’s smart, and it might save you thousands later.