A recent study reports that the median amount of time between a
breach of a company's computer network and the discovery of the
incident is 229
days. But some cyberliability policy
forms require that both the breach event and discovery of loss (or
resulting claim) occur during the policy period. So what happens
when a breach is discovered three months into the policy period
but, unbeknownst at the time, the intrusion actually occurred six
months before, or even earlier? If your company's
cyberliability insurance policy excludes breach events occurring
before the inception of the policy period, the company could find
itself without coverage for an otherwise-covered claim or loss.
The use of retroactive dates and extended reporting periods to
avoid such a gap in coverage is addressed in a
Client Alert issued by members of Reed Smith's Insurance
Recovery Group. Retroactive dates extend the policy's coverage
back to a date earlier than the actual policy period, with the
