The British Insurance Brokers' Association (BIBA) has reactivated its "Ben the Broker" advertising campaign with a sharper focus on cyber risk, pairing the consumer push with a new accredited broker directory aimed at narrowing a protection gap that has left most small UK firms without dedicated cyber cover.
Unveiled at the 2026 BIBA Conference, the latest instalment carries forward a character that first appeared in 2025, when the trade body ran its inaugural national advertising drive.
BIBA said the original outing generated 47 million opportunities to see, hear or read messaging about the value of broker-led advice, a figure that ran ahead of internal expectations.
This time the storyline centres on a side-by-side animation comparing two businesses — one with cyber cover arranged through Ben, the other without — to illustrate the financial and operational consequences of an attack.
The advert also walks through services typically bundled with a policy, including 24-hour incident response, threat monitoring and IT recovery support.
It will run on television, national radio, in newspapers, on Google and across social media through May and June, with creative handled by agency Lavery Rowe and input from the BIBA board.
BIBA chief executive Graeme Trudgill said the new phase keeps the broker advocacy message but turns the spotlight onto cyber exposures.
"Ben the Broker burst onto the scene last year to promote insurance brokers. It was the first national advertising campaign BIBA has delivered, and it exceeded our expectations," he said.
Trudgill added that the campaign would continue to make the case for using a broker while focusing on the growth in cyber risk and how brokers can help businesses respond.
Alongside the campaign, BIBA has rolled out a Cyber Insurance Directory listing brokers that have completed its Accredited Cyber Insurance Broker programme.
The trade body said the move responds to a stark mismatch between exposure and take-up. It cited the Hiscox Cyber Readiness Report 2025, which found 59% of respondents had been hit by a cyber-attack in the previous 12 months, and a BIBA-CFC buyers' guide showing SMEs are targeted nearly four times as often as large organisations.
Department for Science, Innovation and Technology data, meanwhile, shows just 10% of UK businesses and 5% of charities hold a dedicated cyber insurance policy.
Accreditation criteria, shaped with DSIT input, require brokers to run their own cyber framework generally meeting or exceeding the Cyber Essentials standard, carry standalone cyber cover for their own operations and ensure relevant staff undertake continuous cyber training.
"Cyber threats are on the increase and this is a positive initiative that aims to help raise awareness and close the cyber insurance protection gap by ensuring SMEs can be signposted to a genuine expert," Trudgill said.
He added that broader uptake of cyber cover could support economic resilience against the type of cybercrime events the UK has seen in recent months.
Baroness Lloyd of Effra, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Digital Economy, said combining the government's Cyber Essentials scheme with BIBA's accreditation gives firms practical tools to grasp the risks, protect their data and finances, and recover quickly when something goes wrong.
She said the work needs to keep being pushed so businesses across the country have the cyber resilience they need to succeed.
