The NAIC's 2026 Report on the Cybersecurity Insurance Market counts 5.84 million U.S. cyber policies in force at the end of 2025, up 33% in a year, with endorsements to other policies making up nearly 63% of the count and about 4% of the premium, according to the report and Business Insurance's account of it on October 21.
U.S. cyber direct written premium, including alien surplus lines carriers, rose 3.5% to about $9.46 billion in 2025, the report says, after a 7.11% fall in 2024 that the NAIC's prior report called the first-ever contraction. Industrywide, the loss ratio rose to 53% from 48.7%, the second straight annual increase.
Each year the NAIC compiles the Cybersecurity Insurance Coverage Supplement that U.S. insurers file with the annual statement, plus alien surplus lines data from the NAIC's International Insurers Department. Filings for 2025 are the second year under a supplement that sorts cyber business into primary, excess and endorsement policies, and the first in which the three lines can be compared year on year.
Key Takeaways
- U.S. cyber direct written premium was about $9.46 billion in 2025, up 3.5% from $9.14 billion in 2024, which had been down 7.11%, according to the NAIC report.
- Domestic policies in force reached 5.84 million, up 33% from 4.37 million a year earlier; endorsements grew 53.8%, primary policies 13.6%, and excess policies fell 45.3%.
- Endorsements are nearly 63% of policies in force and about 4% of premium, Business Insurance reported; primary policies carry about 64% of premium and excess about 32%.
- The industry loss ratio rose to 53% from 48.7%; the primary loss and DCC ratio rose about 8 points to 57% while excess improved slightly to 52%.
- Reported claims rose 20% to 56,323, more than six times the 2017 level, the report says.
Where the premium sits
U.S.-domiciled insurers wrote about $7.46 billion of the 2025 total and alien surplus lines insurers about $2 billion, according to the report. Domestic premium was about $2.75 billion in 2020, the report says.
Surplus lines carriers, domestic and alien together, hold nearly two-thirds of the premium, Insurance Journal reported on October 27. A year earlier, domestic surplus lines alone held 57% of premium, the prior report said.
Premium recovered in a soft market. Aon and other brokers have reported falling cyber rates through 2025 and into 2026, so the 3.5% rise in premium came with a policy count up 33%, with the new policies concentrated in the endorsement line that carries the least premium per policy.
What the three-way split counts
Until the 2023 filings, the Cyber Supplement split cyber business into standalone and package policies. For 2024 filings the NAIC replaced that with a primary, excess and endorsement split. "Packaged" had been intended to mean cyber covered as an endorsement only, the NAIC said in its 2025 report, and the new wording draws "a clear distinction between policies covering only cyber versus policies for which cyber is an endorsement to another policy."
An endorsement adds cyber coverage to a business owners policy or a commercial package, usually at a sublimit well below the limits sold on a standalone cyber form and for a correspondingly small premium. In its 2025 report the NAIC described endorsements as "high-volume but low-premium products" and excess policies as the reverse.
Those gaps widened in 2025. Endorsement policies grew 53.8% in a year, primary policies 13.6%, and excess policies fell 45.3%, according to the report. A year earlier the NAIC put endorsements at 55.1% of active policies, primary at 41.6% and excess at 3.3%; the 2025 premium split was little changed from 2024's 65%, 31% and 4%.
| Policy type | Share of 2024 policies in force | Change in policy count, 2025 | Share of 2025 premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary | 41.6% | +13.6% | About 64% |
| Excess | 3.3% | -45.3% | About 32% |
| Endorsement | 55.1% | +53.8% | About 4% |
Sources: NAIC 2025 Report on the Cybersecurity Insurance Market (2024 data) for the 2024 policy shares; NAIC 2026 report as reported by Business Insurance and Insurance Journal for the 2025 figures. Business Insurance put endorsements at nearly 63% of 2025 policies in force. U.S.-domiciled insurers only; alien surplus lines carriers do not file the supplement.
For an aggregation model the two shares measure different things. Premium, which is where capital and reinsurance limits are set, sits 96% in the primary and excess lines. Policy count, which is where a single-vendor outage lands, sits 63% in endorsements. A failed software update of the kind CrowdStrike pushed in July 2024, or an outage at a major cloud provider, reaches every policy with a dependent business interruption or system failure grant at the same moment, whatever premium that policy carries.
Endorsement claims also close fastest, the NAIC's 2025 report found: 91.52% of reported endorsement claims had been closed, against 83.93% for primary and 76.84% for excess, and closed endorsement claims were the smallest group of the three. That report also noted that excess claims closed without payment outnumbered paid excess claims by more than 20 to 1.
A second year of rising losses
At 53%, the industry loss ratio follows 48.7% in 2024, the report says, and the increase was concentrated in the primary book, where the combined loss and defense and cost containment ratio rose about 8 points to 57%. The excess ratio improved slightly, to 52%.
Reported claims rose 20% to 56,323 in 2025, which the report says is more than six times the 2017 level. A year earlier the NAIC had recorded a rise of almost 40%.
Neither trade account reports a separate loss ratio for the endorsement line, and neither breaks the 56,323 claims down by policy type.
Primary is the line where the loss ratio and the rate cycle meet. Primary policies carry about 64% of premium, their loss and DCC ratio rose about 8 points in a year, and brokers have reported rates falling across the same period. Neither trade account mentions rate adequacy, and the Cyber Supplement collects no rate-change data.
Excess policies fell 45.3% in count while still carrying about 32% of premium. In the prior year's data, excess claims had the lowest closure rate of the three lines, at 76.84%.
Further Reading
- One Ransomware Gang Drove 40% of Cyber Claims, Skewing Loss Models: how a single threat actor's share of claims distorts frequency assumptions.
- 86% Ransom Refusal Rate Exposes Flaw in Standard Severity Models: the refusal rate and what it does to a cyber severity curve.
- Ransomware Activity Tripled Since 2022. Claims Rose 80%.: Travelers' second-quarter claims mix by cause.
- Cyber and AI Liability Converge Into One Digital Risk Line: Pricing the Unbundled Exposure: how cyber and AI liability coverage grants are being combined.
Sources
- NAIC, 2026 Report on the Cybersecurity Insurance Market (2025 data)
- Business Insurance, "U.S. cyber premiums rebound, policy numbers surge: NAIC," October 21, 2026
- Insurance Journal, report on the NAIC cyber market data, October 27, 2026
- NAIC, 2025 Report on the Cybersecurity Insurance Market (2024 data), PDF