London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Oct 03, 2025

Lloyd’s Of London, Aon and Others Poised to Profit From Cryptocurrency Hacker Insurance

Lloyd’s Of London, Aon and Others Poised to Profit From Cryptocurrency Hacker Insurance

Where there are assets, there’s insurance, and that’s becoming increasingly true in crypto, where the value of all digital coins vastly exceeds the amount of insurance currently available. Over the past three years, cryptocurrencies’ market value has risen 25-fold, hovering near $300 billion today. Meanwhile, theft of crypto assets by hackers continues unabated, reaching $480 million in the first half of 2019. Some insurance companies are leaping at the opportunity.

Lloyd’s of London is a $45 billion insurance marketplace where companies can form syndicates and co-underwrite insurance. Its roots date back to the 17th century, and it’s famous for helping insure exotic entities ranging from the R.M.S. Titanic to a cartoon drawn by Leonardo da Vinci. Now it’s emerging as a major player in crypto insurance. It facilitated the $255 million policy that Coinbase announced in April, as well as crypto custodian BitGo’s $100 million policy. Aon, the second-largest broker in the world, which is also based in London, brokered the Coinbase policy. Chubb, the Swiss behemoth that’s the largest commercial insurer in the U.S., has paid claims related to cryptocurrency hacking. (Chubb says it does not write insurance policies for cryptocurrency exchanges or digital wallets.) Other companies that store investors’ cryptocurrencies like Fidelity, Gemini, Anchorage and Kingdom Trust have also purchased insurance. 

Coalition, a two-year-old San Francisco cybersecurity insurance startup, already has more than 500 cryptocurrency companies as clients, including exchanges, firms that created their own digital currencies and digital-asset hedge funds. Coalition cofounder and CEO Joshua Motta is a former C.I.A. analyst who also cofounded Cloudflare, an internet software and security company that’s aiming to go public at a $3.5 billion valuation in the coming weeks. Motta has grown Coalition to 11,000 total customers and $50 million in premium revenue (premiums are the recurring fees that insurers collect annually from their clients).

Cryptocurrency exchanges and custodians—the venues where you can buy, sell and store assets—are hackers’ top targets, because they collectively hold billions of dollars in crypto. They face a unique challenge, because they need to let customers move their assets quickly while also storing them safely. Even Binance, the largest crypto exchange that has historically had a reputation for strong security, fell victim to a $40 million theft earlier this year. It reimbursed customers through its own “Secure Asset Fund for Users” or SAFU, a sort of self-insurance it announced last year. Binance says it diverts 10% of all trading fees into the fund in the event of theft, and it doesn’t purchase any outside insurance. The company declined to say how large the SAFU fund is.

Two years ago, the market for crypto insurance was “nonexistent,” Coalition CEO Motta says. Today he thinks it’s worth between $200 million and $500 million in premium revenue. Motta expects the market for crypto insurance to grow faster than the 20% to 25% pace at which the larger cybersecurity insurance sector is currently expanding.

The market would likely grow even faster if U.S. regulators provided more clarity on questions like which digital assets will be deemed securities and are bound by the same laws that govern public companies. The patchwork of state-by-state regulations in insurance also creates a speed bump. “Regulation has to catch up,” says Eric Boyum, head of Aon’s technology insurance brokerage arm. More regulatory clarity would increase insurers’ comfort with underwriting policies and taking new risks. 

With $300 billion in crypto assets on the planet and less than $1 billion in available insurance coverage, there’s a huge imbalance between supply and demand. Ty Sagalow, a 36-year insurance industry veteran and former AIG executive who is currently chief insurance officer at crypto insurance startup BlockRe, has lofty expectations. “I see this market as the next cyber,” he says. “It will grow to a multibillion-dollar premium market within the next five to ten years.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×