Why did my cyber insurance renewal get harder?

Because carriers stopped taking your word for it. Underwriting has moved from attestation to evidence: insurers now ask for sign-in logs, MFA proof and control screenshots rather than a signed checklist. Companies that cannot produce the evidence pay more or get declined.

For years the renewal was a form you signed. Then losses climbed, and the market changed how it asks. The questions did not just get longer — they changed kind. "Do you have MFA?" became "export ninety days of sign-in logs and show us."

What that means in practice

• The renewal packet is now a technical evidence request wearing an insurance envelope.
• The gap between what you attest and what you can prove is exactly where premiums rise and claims get contested.
• The work of gathering that evidence lands on whoever runs IT, usually in the two weeks before the deadline.

The fix is not more tools. It is knowing which controls your carrier actually prices, proving the ones you have, and closing the two or three that matter before the renewal date — not after. That is a review we run inside the assessment, and the renewal question is one of the most common ways an advisory conversation starts.