Insuring the Unseen: Closing the Protection Gap in Economic Cyber-Espionage

By: Tom Johansmeyer | Fall 2025

Intellectual property (IP) theft compromises a company’s ability to compete and, in aggregate, can erode a country’s economic security, allowing adversaries to close commercial and technological innovation gaps. The insurance industry lacks a solution for economic cyber espionage, exposing companies to a $9 trillion risk. The absence of relevant insurance protection does not appear to be a problem of insurability but rather of execution. This paper explores a broadened view of the economic cyber espionage threat, one that includes identifying the financial harm that can come from a wide range of cyber espionage scenarios for both “competent” and “incompetent” actors. The research then uses this expanded scope to identify the current protection gaps in insurance for this increasingly frequent risk and offers recommendations toward closing them.

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