Sophos teams up with Capsule to cover MSP insurance needs

Sophos has recognised the increasing pressure managed service providers (MSPs) are coming under from customers to provide cyber insurance, and has formed a partnership to cover that requirement.

The security player has formed a partnership with insurance broker Capsule to provide coverage for organisations that deploy the vendor’s solutions via an MSP.

The deal will arm the vendor’s MSPs with an answer to questions about cyber insurance, providing users with a range of benefits including pre-approved use of Sophos incident response services and a streamlined applications process and automatically reduced premiums.

The Capsule partnership was signed against a backdrop of increased interest from SMEs in insurance as they look to improve data protraction. Smaller customers have reported struggling with many of the existing options aimed at larger enterprises because of the technical complexity and time it takes to complete the process.

Sophos pointed to its recent research that indicated 99% of MSPs had reported an increase in demand for services that met cyber security requirements.

Chris Bell, senior vice-president of worldwide channels and alliances at Sophos, said it had a strong base of MSPs and viewed the Capsule move as more evidence of its commitment to its channel base.

“With this partnership, we are extending the benefits available to customers that use Sophos solutions through an MSP while also making it easier for MSPs to support their customers’ cyber insurance needs,” he said.

“Automatic discounts for the use of Sophos cyber controls, including Sophos managed detection and response [MDR], reward proactive risk reduction while streamlined MSP-friendly support in the event of a cyber incident provide peace of mind while minimising customer disruption.”

Liam Green, co-founder and chief operating officer at Capsule, said the tie-up was reacting to changed SME market dynamics: “Cyber security and cyber insurance can no longer operate in silos – they must work together to create measurable risk reduction for businesses.

“This partnership is built on a simple idea: businesses that are proactively reducing their cyber risk exposure should be proactively rewarded by their insurer to reflect that effort.

“At Capsule, we’ve always believed insurance should feel like an enabler, not a barrier. That means making policies easier to access, more reflective of the protections already in place, and more dependable when it matters most.”

The Capsule coverage covers a wide range of scenarios, including financial protection against breaches, crisis support and customer care services.

Others across the security industry have also noted the increasing pressure for MSPs to have a cyber insurance offering.

Speaking to MicroScope last week, Jason Carter, chief revenue officer at SonicWall, said that customers were looking to MSPs to help them get to a zero-trust environment and that the demands of cyber insurance were also driving demand for robust security solutions. “The opportunity we see is [around] the pressure that partners have to offer zero-trust offerings to their customers – specifically driven by the demand surrounding cyber insurance and the vulnerabilities that are associated with VPN in particular – [and this] continues to be what drives the switch over to zero-trust offerings,” said Carter.