Retroactive date

Cyber policies commonly include a retroactive date, the intended effect of which is that cyber insurers have no liability for any acts, incidents or circumstances that were committed, occurred or arose prior to that date. The consequence of this retroactive date is that if a cyber incident occurs before the retroactive date, and is only detected some time after that date, then the Insured may not be covered under their policy.

Your clients should be aware of the impact of retroactive dates and be very clear as to what the impact may be of their inclusion within their policy. In particular, if the retroactive date is the “Inception Date”, then coverage is only provided for incidents that occur after that date and the threat of Dwell Time may mean that coverage is excluded. Alternatively, there are leading polices in the market that do not contain retroactive dates.

Sync Underwriting & Retroactive Dates

Sync Underwriting’s approach to this matter is simple – if your client buys a cyber policy and at the time of purchase they are unaware that they have suffered a cyber incident, then when they do discover the incident, their policy should provide coverage, regardless of when the cyber incident occurred. Therefore, there is no retroactive date within the Sync Underwriting policy and no mention of one.

Example

In the graphical example below, we compare how Sync Underwriting’s policy compares with Insurer B’s, which has the inception date as the retroactive Date. In the example, the cyber intrusion occurs 3-months prior to the inception date but was not detected until after the policy incepted. Sync Underwriting’s policy provides coverage, however Insurer B’s may not respond.

• CyberCX 2025 Threat Report