Cyber Insurance Readiness Review for Perth SMBs: Make Sure Your Ransomware Claim Will Actually Pay Out

Your operations manager rings on a Tuesday morning to say the file shares are encrypted, the line-of-business app is offline, and there is a ransom note on every desktop. You ring your broker. The broker rings the insurer. Two days into the incident, an underwriter’s question lands in your inbox: can you produce evidence that multi-factor authentication was enforced on all remote access, that backups were tested in the last 90 days, and that privileged accounts were separated from daily-use accounts? If the answer is “we think so”, your claim is in trouble. Cyber Insurance Readiness Review from Cyber by Exegesis is the engagement that answers those questions before you need to.

The problem

Ransomware is consistently the highest-impact cyber loss category for Australian SMBs, and cyber insurance has become the financial backstop most Perth SMBs rely on to survive one. The catch sits in the policy schedule. Modern cyber policies list a set of warranties and conditions — typically built around the controls in the ACSC Essential Eight at roughly Maturity Level One (ML1) — that the insured represents as being in place. MFA on remote access and email. Patched operating systems and applications. Tested, segregated backups. Restricted administrative privileges. Application control.

When a claim is lodged, the insurer’s forensic team verifies those representations. If they cannot, the claim can be reduced or denied. Most Perth SMBs answered the application form in good faith, but nobody has gone back to confirm the controls still match what was signed. Staff turnover, a new cloud app, a contractor with admin rights that never got removed — these are the gaps that turn a paid claim into a denied one.

A ransomware event that encrypts customer PII also engages the OAIC Notifiable Data Breaches scheme if the SMB is covered by the Privacy Act, which adds notification obligations on top of the recovery itself.

What the Cyber Insurance Readiness Review does

Cyber by Exegesis runs a fixed-scope, pre-renewal or pre-claim review designed around the exact warranties your policy lists:

• A control-by-control walk of your policy schedule against the ACSC Essential Eight at ML1, mapped to the specific language your insurer used.
• Documented evidence per control — screenshots, configuration exports, backup-restore test logs, MFA enforcement reports — packaged so an underwriter or forensic assessor can read it directly.
• A gap register flagging any control that, on the day of a ransomware claim, would likely trigger a reduction or denial — with a remediation path for each.
• A short briefing for your broker so renewal questions are answered consistently with what is actually deployed.
• A written readiness report you can hand to the insurer, the broker, or your board.

Cyber by Exegesis is the cyber consultancy line of Exegesis, the same group behind the DRMO product. This engagement is preventive and evidentiary — we are not your incident responder and we are not selling you the insurance. We confirm what is true today and document it.

How it works

1. We start with a short scoping call and ask for a copy of your current cyber policy schedule and the application you submitted at last renewal.
2. We map every listed warranty and condition to a specific Essential Eight ML1 control and to the system where the evidence lives (Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, your RMM, your backup tool).
3. We pull read-only evidence across one to two weeks, log it against each control, and run a backup-restore spot test if one has not been run in the last 90 days.
4. We compile the gap register, walk it through with you, and agree which gaps you will close before renewal or claim and which you will disclose.
5. We deliver the readiness report and a broker-ready summary, and hold a 90-day review window for any follow-up evidence.

Why this matters in Perth

Perth SMBs concentrate in resources services, engineering, logistics, and professional services — sectors that hold customer and project data attractive to ransomware operators and that often run on a mix of cloud platforms and legacy on-premises systems. The time-zone gap to east-coast brokers and insurers means a claim verification conversation that should take hours can stretch into days if evidence is not pre-packaged. A Perth SMB that walks into renewal with a current readiness report — controls mapped, evidence attached, gaps disclosed — gets a better conversation with its underwriter and a far better outcome if a ransomware claim is ever lodged.

Sources

• ACSC Essential Eight Maturity Model: https://www.cyber.gov.au/resources-business-and-government/essential-cyber-security/essential-eight/essential-eight-maturity-model
• ACSC Small Business Cyber Security Guide: https://www.cyber.gov.au/protect-yourself/resources-protect-yourself/personal-cyber-security-guides
• OAIC Notifiable Data Breaches scheme: https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/notifiable-data-breaches
• Cyber by Exegesis — Cyber Insurance Readiness Review (waitlist)

Join the waitlist

Join the waitlist — first access when Cyber by Exegesis opens Cyber Insurance Readiness Review for Perth SMBs

We are sequencing engagements by renewal date and by insurer. Join the waitlist with your renewal month and your current insurer or broker — we will tell you when we are ready to take a brief from your business.