Cyber insurance remains underpenetrated among the UK real estate and renting businesses, despite cyberattacks against UK property services companies increasing by 17% in 2025. A combination of rising cyber exposure and relatively low insurance uptake is leaving a significant proportion of property businesses financially exposed to cyber incidents, reveals GlobalData, publishers of RBI.
GlobalData Q1 2025 UK SME Insurance Survey
GlobalData’s Q1 2025 UK SME Insurance Survey found that cyber insurance penetration in the real estate and renting industry is below the total SME market across every business size. Penetration stands at 7.7% among sole traders, 15.8% among micro businesses, 20.5% among small businesses, and 55.0% among medium-sized businesses. This compares with 13.1%, 26.4%, 40.1%, and 63.0%, respectively, across the wider SME market.
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The findings come as cyber threats facing property businesses continue to increase. Figures sourced from the Information Commissioner’s Office show that cyberattacks against UK property services businesses rose from 178 incidents in 2024 to 208 in 2025. Property companies routinely handle sensitive customer information, including bank details, mortgage information, tenancy records, proof of address, passports, and driving licenses, increasing both the value of their data to cybercriminals and the potential consequences of a breach.
The financial risks extend beyond the loss of personal information. Criminals can use compromised property transaction data to redirect payments by replacing legitimate bank details during transactions. City of London Police and Action Fraud recorded 143 cases of conveyancing fraud between April 2024 and March 2025, resulting in losses of £11.7m ($15.6m). Most cases involved residential property transactions, with an average loss of £78,393.
Charlie Hutcherson, Senior Insurance Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Property businesses are becoming increasingly reliant on digital systems while continuing to hold large amounts of sensitive personal and financial information.”
Market opportunity for insurers
This creates a broad cyber risk that stretches beyond data breaches to include fraud, business interruption, and potentially significant recovery costs. However, cyber insurance uptake across the sector has not kept pace with this exposure, particularly among smaller businesses.
Hutcherson continues: “For insurers, this represents an opportunity to address an increasingly visible protection gap. Improving understanding of cyber risks among property businesses will be important, but insurers will also need to make cover easier to understand and access.”
Smaller firms may not necessarily recognise the full financial impact a cyber incident can have until one occurs, meaning brokers and insurers have an important role to play in demonstrating how insurance can sit alongside cybersecurity measures.
Hutcherson concludes: “As property transactions and customer interactions become increasingly digital, cyber exposure within the sector is unlikely to diminish. Rising attack volumes combined with comparatively low insurance penetration could increase the number of businesses absorbing cyber losses themselves. Insurers that can improve awareness, simplify distribution, and demonstrate the practical value of cyber cover therefore have an opportunity to increase penetration within an underserved part of the SME market.”
