It Took a Decade, But Cyber Insurance Is Finally Catching Up With Cybercrime

In 2026, cybercrime will cost governments, companies, and organizations worldwide over $11.3 trillion, roughly $1 trillion more than last year, reflecting its annual increases over the past five years. And while the total cost of cybercrime continues to grow much faster and remains massive compared to global cybersecurity spending, one segment of the broader cyber risk ecosystem is on track to break that long-standing negative pattern.

According to an analysis by the Insuranceopedia.com research team, global cyber insurance spending is expected to grow by 39% by 2029, outpacing cybercrime growth by 2 percentage points for the first time in nearly a decade.

Cyber Insurance Growth Trailed Cybercrime by 61 Points, Now Set to Overtake It

For the past five years, cybercrime has ranked as the top global business risk, and that hasn’t changed in 2026. According to the latest Allianz Risk Barometer survey, 42% of respondents fear cyberattacks the most, roughly 10% more than AI scams or supply chain disruption, the next two major risks on the list.

But unlike most other risks Allianz tracks, cyber threats don’t go away. They keep evolving, are hard to predict, and difficult to fully prevent, which is why companies, especially SMEs and mid-market firms, are shifting from cyber prevention alone to a combination of prevention and risk transfer, usually through cyber insurance.

While cyber insurance still represents only around 1% of global insurance premiums, according to a 2025 Morgan Lewis report, demand is surging, and the market is growing much faster than the broader insurance market and even faster than projected cybercrime growth. The latest Statista data confirms this trend.

Between 2020 and 2026, global cybercrime costs have jumped by 285%, rising from $2.9 trillion to $11.3 trillion. The cyber insurance market has grown by 224% in the same period, trailing cybercrime by 61 percentage points. This triple-digit growth helped total cyber insurance spending to surge from $5.3 billion to $17.2 billion. However, the latest Statista market forecasts show a major shift in growth rates between the two markets, with cyber insurance set to potentially break a nearly decade-long trend. 

Statista expects the cost of cybercrime to grow by another 37% over the next three years, reaching $15.6 trillion by 2029. In comparison, the cyber insurance market is set to grow by 39% over the same period, outpacing cybercrime by two percentage points.

So, what’s really behind this trend? One key driver is that cyberattacks are becoming more sophisticated and expensive each year, with breaches costing millions on average, pushing cyber insurance from “nice-to-have” to a “must-have” risk management tool. Many companies also use cyber insurance to transfer rising regulatory and compliance risk.

While Statista doesn’t provide exact figures, North America is expected to remain the largest cyber insurance market, driven by strong corporate adoption and tighter regulation. Still, Asia-Pacific is set to grow fastest, as rising cyber threats push more companies to adopt insurance for the first time, outpacing even Western and Northern Europe.

Cyber Insurance Set to Grow Twice as Fast as Cybersecurity

The growth of the cyber insurance market becomes even more interesting when compared to the broader cybersecurity space, which still lags behind. Between 2020 and 2026, the global cybersecurity spending increased by 73%, three times less than cyber insurance growth and nearly four times less than cybercrime.

While this gap is expected to narrow over the next three years, the cybersecurity market will still grow only 17% by 2029, or half the pace of cyber insurance, signaling a broader shift in how organizations manage cyber risk.