- New England's Only Dental-Specific IT Provider
- (207) 333-2206
Do I Need Cyber Insurance for My Dental Practice
-
Ezra Angelo
- • February 25, 2026
The short answer is yes. Dental practices store protected health information, process financial transactions, and run software systems that attackers actively target. A successful cyberattack on a dental practice without cyber insurance leaves the owner personally responsible for breach notification costs, legal fees, regulatory penalties, and recovery expenses.
Here is what cyber insurance actually covers, what it costs, and what to look for before buying a policy.
General liability and professional liability policies do not cover these costs. Without a dedicated cyber policy, every dollar of that recovery comes directly from the practice.
What Cyber Insurance Covers for Dental Practices
A cyber policy covers two categories: first-party losses that affect your practice directly, and third-party liability for claims made against your practice by patients or regulators.
The legal requirement to notify affected patients after a data breach is expensive. A practice with 2,000 patient records pays for written notification, credit monitoring offers, and call center support. Cyber insurance covers these costs.
If ransomware encrypts your systems, cyber insurance covers the IT forensics, system recovery, and in some cases the ransom payment if recovery from backup is not possible.
Lost production revenue during a period of system downtime caused by a cyberattack is covered under most cyber policies up to a defined daily limit.
HIPAA investigations and patient lawsuits following a breach generate legal costs that cyber insurance covers within policy limits.
Some policies include public relations support to help manage the reputational impact of a breach with patients and the public.
What Cyber Insurance Does Not Cover
If your systems were already compromised before the policy was purchased, or if you had known security gaps you failed to address, the insurer may deny the claim.
Wire transfer fraud where an employee sends money to an attacker posing as a vendor is sometimes excluded from standard cyber policies. Look for a policy that specifically includes social engineering coverage.
A power surge that destroys hardware is typically covered by property insurance, not cyber insurance. Understand which policy covers which type of incident before a claim occurs.
Cyber Insurance Readiness Check
Insurers evaluate these five controls before issuing a policy. Check each one your practice has in place to see how your security posture affects your premium.
Frequently Asked Questions
Ekim IT Solutions works exclusively with dental practices. We serve New England and New York with on-site support and dental practices nationwide with remote support. We implement the MFA, EDR, encrypted backups, and network controls that cyber insurers require and that make a policy worth having when you actually need it.
-
- • February 25, 2026
