Does your cyber policy defend you when a client's closing funds go missing?

Cyber insurance is hard to compare because the differences that decide a claim don't live on the price quote. They live in endorsements, sublimits, and definitions — often on the last pages of the policy. This review is a good example of why that matters, because the Corvus policy we read is a strong one. It is broad on the first-party side, it was broadened further by a wholesale amendatory endorsement, and it beats the Arch program outright on more line items than it loses. If you only counted rows, you might buy it.

For real estate brokerages, escrow and title companies, and property managers, two differences matter above all the rest. First: whose money is covered. Real estate firms hold other people's money — earnest deposits, security deposits, rent rolls, closing funds — and a policy that covers only “your own funds” can deny a trust-account wire fraud entirely. Here, both policies pass that test: Corvus expressly covers Funds Held in Escrow, and Arch covers client funds in your care, custody, and control.

Second: who defends you when a client loses her own money. When a bad actor breaches your network or email, reads Mrs. Smith's closing details, and uses that private information to deceive her into wiring her own funds to a fraudulent account, Mrs. Smith has a claim against you, because a breach of your systems exposed the information that harmed her. We call this 3rd Party Wire Fraud coverage, and it lives in the Network Security & Privacy Liability coverage part. The Corvus policy has that coverage part — and then excludes any claim arising from “the value of… wire transfer.” The carve-back that restores wire coverage applies only to the first-party side of the policy. Mrs. Smith's lawsuit is not defended and not paid.

Below, we compare each coverage area of a Corvus Smart Cyber Insurance™ policy issued to a real estate brokerage against the Arch NetSafe® 2.0 program PBI Group places for real estate professionals. Both policies are shown at a $1,000,000 aggregate limit with a $2,500 deductible and full prior acts, so the headline numbers are the same and only the fine print differs. Because these two policies were not issued to the same firm, we compare what actually decides claims — coverage structure, sublimits, conditions, and exclusions. A green cell marks the stronger coverage; where both cells are green, the policies are comparable. Where Corvus is stronger, the green is in the Corvus column — an honest comparison is the only kind worth publishing. Select any row for the details and why they matter.