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Why Does My Small Business Need Cyber Insurance?
Most small businesses need cyber insurance, because the payroll and employee data they store is exactly what attackers want, and a general liability policy usually will not cover the cost of a breach. Here is what cyber insurance covers, what affects the price, and how the Acrisure Cyber plan works for Paper Trails clients.
Key Takeaways from this Article
- Cyber insurance helps pay the costs of a data breach or cyberattack, from legal fees and customer notification to data recovery and lost income.
- Coverage falls into two buckets: first-party (your own losses) and third-party (claims brought against you by others).
- Small businesses are frequent targets, and your general liability policy usually will not cover a cyber incident.
- Premiums vary based on your size, industry, revenue, and the security controls you already have in place.
- Paper Trails clients can add the Acrisure Cyber plan for $30 per month plus $1 per employee per month, activated and billed by Paper Trails.
What Is Cyber Insurance?
Cyber insurance is a policy that helps a business pay for the financial fallout of a cyberattack or data breach, such as legal fees, customer notification, credit monitoring, data recovery, and lost income. It is sometimes called cyber liability insurance or cyber risk insurance, and it exists to keep one bad incident from putting a small business out of business.
Standard business insurance was not built for this. A general liability policy covers a slip and fall in your lobby. It typically does nothing when an employee clicks a bad link and your systems lock up.
What Does Cyber Insurance Actually Cover?
Coverage generally splits into two categories. These categories are first-party and third-party coverage.
First-party coverage pays for your own direct losses. That includes the work to figure out what happened, restoring or rebuilding data, notifying affected people, and the income you lose while you are shut down. Third-party coverage handles claims other people bring against you. If a client's information leaks and they take legal action, this is the piece that covers you.
For example, let's look at a small accounting firm in Portland during tax season. A staff member opens an attachment that looks like a client return, and ransomware spreads across the network. First-party coverage helps pay to investigate, rebuild the files, and cover the revenue lost while the office is frozen. If a client sues because their Social Security number was exposed, third-party coverage steps in. Most policies exclude things like lost future profits, bodily injury, and stolen intellectual property, so it is worth reading the exclusions closely.
What Is Acrisure, and What Is the Acrisure Cyber Plan?
Acrisure is one of the largest insurance brokerages and financial services companies in the country. Rather than being a single insurance carrier, it connects businesses with coverage and risk services across many areas, including cyber. On the technology side, Acrisure also offers managed cybersecurity and IT services, so the name shows up in two related places: helping businesses get insured against cyber risk and helping them defend against attacks in the first place.
The Acrisure Cyber plan is an added layer of protection meant to help safeguard a business's finances and data against cyber incidents. Because so much sensitive information lives inside your payroll and HR system, it is worth understanding what this coverage does and how to get it.
How Paper Trails Clients Can Add the Acrisure Cyber Plan
The Acrisure Cyber plan is an optional add-on for Paper Trails clients. It costs $30 per month plus $1 per employee per month, and Paper Trails activates it and bills it alongside your payroll services, so you do not have to go source a policy on your own. A business with 20 employees, for example, would pay $50 a month.
The specifics of coverage depend on your situation, so our team is glad to walk through what applies to your business before you add it.
How Much Does Cyber Insurance Cost, and What Affects the Price?
On the open market, cost depends on the business, so anyone who quotes you a flat number without asking questions is guessing. Insurers look at your revenue, your employee count, your industry, how much sensitive data you hold, and the coverage limits you choose. A ten-person law office and a hundred-person hospitality group will not pay the same rate.
The controls you have in place matter too. Insurers increasingly want to see that you are managing your own risk before they take it on. Basic safeguards such as multi-factor authentication, regular software updates, employee security training, and encrypted data can affect both whether you qualify and what you pay.
FAQs: Cyber Insurance
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First-party coverage pays for your own losses after an incident, such as data recovery and lost income. Third-party coverage responds to claims other people bring against you, such as a client whose data was exposed. Most businesses want both, since a single breach often creates costs on your side and legal exposure from customers at the same time. When you review a policy, check that both are included rather than assuming one covers the other.
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Usually not. General liability is built for physical risks like injuries and property damage. Cyber incidents typically require a dedicated cyber policy or a cyber add-on. It is a common and costly surprise, since many owners assume their existing business policy has them covered until they file a claim and learn otherwise. If you are not sure what your current policy includes, it is worth asking your provider directly.
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Paper Trails clients can add the Acrisure Cyber plan for $30 per month plus $1 per employee per month. It is an optional add-on that Paper Trails activates and bills, so you do not have to source a separate policy. Our team is glad to walk through what the coverage includes for your business. To get started, contact your payroll processor.
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For most businesses that handle payroll, customer data, or payments, the cost of a policy is small next to the cost of a breach. The right answer depends on your specific exposure. A one-person shop with no stored customer data has a different risk profile than a busy restaurant group running thousands of card transactions a week. The more sensitive data you hold and the more you rely on your systems to operate, the more a policy tends to make sense.
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On the open market, it varies by revenue, industry, size, data volume, and coverage limits, so pricing is quoted per business rather than as a flat rate. The security controls you already have in place can move the price too. For Paper Trails clients, the Acrisure Cyber plan is a set price of $30 per month plus $1 per employee per month.
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Yes. A secure platform lowers your risk, but insurance covers the costs if an incident still happens, including ones that start with your own staff or vendors. No system removes risk entirely, and many breaches begin with a person clicking the wrong link rather than a flaw in the software. Think of strong security and cyber insurance as two parts of the same plan rather than either-or choices.
Conclusion
Cyber insurance is not about expecting the worst. It is about making sure a single incident does not put everything you have built at risk. The right coverage, paired with sensible security habits, turns a potential disaster into a manageable event. If you are a Paper Trails client and want to add the Acrisure Cyber plan, or just want to talk through whether it makes sense for you, reach out to your payroll processor.
Written: July 2026
Updated: October 2026
Written by: Jon Portanova
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