Antares' Lloyd's Syndicate 1274 is supporting a new affirmative cyber war product aimed at US critical infrastructure and essential services providers, including power, water, gas and electricity operators, giving them dedicated cover against hostile state and state-backed cyber activity.
The wording, developed alongside Canopius and approved by Lloyd's, provides affirmative cover rather than relying on exceptions carved out of a standard exclusion. It gives clients access to controlled, Lloyd's-overseen exposure management, with a set aggregate limit across the lineslip and per client.
The product is designed to resolve coverage uncertainty that has built up around cyber war exclusions over the past decade, largely because attacks are often difficult to attribute to a specific hostile state.
Since 2023, Lloyd's has required standalone cyber policies to carry a state-backed attack exclusion under its LMA5566/5567 model clauses, following Market Bulletin Y5381. Those clauses typically require a "major detrimental impact" on a state's critical functions before the exclusion applies, along with an agreed mechanism for attributing an attack to a state actor, a requirement that has proven contentious given how difficult attribution can be in practice.
By offering an affirmative grant of cover instead, the new wording aims to reduce the risk of a contested attribution dispute determining whether a claim is paid.
The launch lands directly in a coverage gap that US federal agencies have themselves flagged as unresolved. Under the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program, the government backstop created after 9/11, a cyberattack only qualifies for federal reimbursement if Treasury certifies it as an act of terrorism, a standard that requires the attack to be violent or coercive in nature.
The Government Accountability Office has repeatedly noted that this threshold is a poor fit for cyber warfare: a state-backed attack on a utility or pipeline could cause catastrophic economic disruption without meeting the program's certification criteria, leaving insurers and policyholders without a backstop.
Meanwhile, Treasury reopened this question in a Federal Register notice in March 2026, seeking public comment on whether the program should be updated to better address cyber-related losses, with a report due to Congress. Discussions of a dedicated federal cyber reinsurance backstop remain exploratory, meaning private market solutions such as this one are, for now, filling a gap that federal policy has not yet resolved.
The product also responds to an active and escalating threat picture. US agencies including CISA, the NSA and the FBI have warned that Chinese state-sponsored actors, tracked under names including Volt Typhoon, have maintained long-term, undetected access inside US critical infrastructure networks spanning energy, water, transportation and communications, positioning themselves for potential disruptive action during a future crisis rather than for conventional espionage. Officials have said some of this access may never be fully identified or removed, given the difficulty of detecting intrusions that rely on legitimate system tools rather than custom malware.
Canopius, which co-developed the wording with Antares, launched a related standalone cyber war product of its own earlier this year, extending cover to state-sponsored attacks carried out during a physical conflict as well as major cyber incidents attributed to state actors outside a formally declared war.
Nick Lang, class underwriter for cyber at Antares, said the difficulty of attributing an attack to a hostile state has left clients facing real coverage uncertainty, and that operators of essential services such as power, water, gas and electricity have a clear and demonstrable need for protection against state-backed action.
“We're pleased to support a Lloyd's-overseen affirmative product that gives them that certainty where it has been missing,” Lang said.
Meanwhile, Martin Campbell, active underwriter for Antares Syndicate 1274, said the collaboration with Lloyd's and Canopius reflects the syndicated market's ability to solve complex insurance problems for clients with specialised needs.
The launch adds to a small but growing set of affirmative cyber war products entering the Lloyd's market, as insurers look to replace exclusion-based uncertainty with clearer terms for clients operating in sectors most exposed to state-backed attack.
