Gallagher Launched Middle East Cyber Risk Advisory
The consultancy targets financial translation of technical threats as regional insurance pricing trends downward.
Updated on Oct. 13, 2026 in Cybersecurity
Live Poll
Is now a good time for businesses to increase their investment in cyber risk protection?
Gallagher has established a cyber risk advisory practice in the Middle East led by actuary Sidharth Wahi. The service aims to translate technical vulnerabilities into operational financial risk metrics.
Why it matters
The practice launched as increased market capacity has driven down regional cyber insurance premiums, forcing organizations to better quantify their exposure to digital threats. This shift addresses the need for clear financial modeling in high-risk environments like the UAE, which reports up to 800,000 daily cyberattacks.
The Middle East saw insurance rates fall 5% to 10% in Q2 2026, significantly outpacing the 4% global average decline. Meanwhile, the India, Middle East and Africa (IMEA) region recorded a 14% overall drop in cyber rates.
The players
Gallagher
A global insurance brokerage and risk management firm providing specialized actuarial and technical advisory services.
Sidharth Wahi
An actuary and the lead executive for the newly established Middle East cyber risk advisory practice.
Marsh
A global professional services firm that tracks insurance market rate fluctuations and regional risk data.
Munich Re
A global reinsurance entity that produces industry-wide actuarial estimates for worldwide cyber premiums.
The details
The practice integrates cybersecurity consulting with actuarial science to translate technical network vulnerabilities into financial and operational risk models. By leveraging global cyber risk datasets, the advisory creates locally tailored assessments for firms facing high-volume threats. This approach allows insurers and businesses to align risk appetite with actual technical exposure rather than relying on historical pricing benchmarks.
Timeline
Q2 2026: Middle East cyber insurance rates fell 5% to 10%.
May 2026: The UAE reported up to 800,000 daily cyberattacks.
2030: Projected worldwide cyber premiums to reach US$28 billion.
The Tech Race
This move represents a strategic effort to capture the growing demand for data-backed risk modeling as the market scales toward a projected US$28 billion in worldwide cyber premiums by 2030. The advisory practice must compete with established reinsurance models while addressing localized threat environments in the Middle East.
Organizations operating in the Middle East will gain access to tools that map daily cyberattack frequency directly to insurance premium costs. This shift enables security teams to justify IT spending by linking defensive upgrades to measurable financial risk reduction.
The takeaway
The firm is positioning itself to lead in high-threat regions by translating technical security data into actionable financial loss metrics for insurers. Watch for the 2030 global premium benchmark to determine if technical risk quantification successfully stabilizes regional insurance pricing.
Further reading
For broader trends in digital risk management, visit our Cybersecurity section.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Insurance Business.
Live Poll
Is now a good time for businesses to increase their investment in cyber risk protection?
