IICJ | Civil Justice Colloquium: Shauhin Talesh - Insuring Cyberinsecurity: Insurance Companies as Symbolic Regulators

Hosted by the UC Irvine Initiative for Inclusive Civil Justice, the Civil Justice Colloquium welcomes Professor Shauhin Talesh (UC Irvine School of Law) to discuss Insuring Cyberinsecurity: Insurance Companies as Symbolic Regulators (UC Press, 2025).

Abstract

Despite the massive costs associated with data breaches, ransomware, viruses, and cyberattacks, most organizations remain thoroughly unprepared to safeguard consumer data. Over the past two decades, the insurance industry has begun offering cyber insurance to help organizations manage cybersecurity and privacy law compliance, while also offering risk management services as part of their insurance packages. These insurers have thus effectively evolved into de facto regulators—yet at the same time, they have failed to effectively curtail cybersecurity breaches. Drawing from interviews, observations, and extensive content analysis of the cyber insurance industry, this book reveals how cyber insurers' risk management services convey legitimacy to the public and to insureds but fall short of actually improving data security, rendering them largely symbolic. Speaking directly to broader debates on regulatory delegation to nonstate actors, Shauhin A. Talesh proposes a new institutional theory of insurance to explain how insurers shape the content and meaning of privacy law and cybersecurity compliance, offering policy recommendations for how insurers and governments can work together to improve cybersecurity and foster greater algorithmic justice.

About the Civil Justice Colloquium

In these colloquia, leading scholars on civil justice are invited to present their works-in-progress to a seminar class at UCI Law. Students are provided with additional readings that contextualize the work and are expected to engage deeply with presenters. This format allows students a unique opportunity to engage with cutting-edge scholarship across a range of topics related to civil justice. From empirical scholarship on the strategies people take in responding to civil legal problems to civil procedural scholarship investigating access to the courts, the series provides a multifaceted view of current challenges and opportunities in expanding access to civil justice.

Faculty from within and outside the law school, and anyone with a keen interest in civil justice is welcome to attend

To request reasonable accommodations for a disability, please email centers@law.uci.edu. 

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