Protect Your School Before a Cyberattack Costs You Everything
Cyber Insurance Group builds cyber liability coverage around the real risks schools and education providers face, not a generic policy. Licensed in 28 states, backed by 12+ A-rated carriers.
Compare your business across 12+ A-rated carriers in about 4 minutes, free and with no obligation. Your submission goes to a licensed agent who works cyber liability every day.
Technology Moved Faster Than Your Coverage Did
Most schools and education providers we talk to haven’t thought about cyber risk until something already went wrong, or almost did.
You store customer data (names, payment info, maybe health records) and you’re not sure what your real exposure is if it’s breached.
You accept online payments or run point-of-sale systems, but have never confirmed whether a payment compromise is actually covered.
You’ve never been walked through what a ransomware attack would actually cost you in downtime, recovery, and lost business.
Your current policy, if you have one, was written before remote logins, cloud tools, and phishing emails became part of daily business.
We shop your coverage with A-rated carriers like
The Federal Student Privacy Law Does Not Tell You to Report a Breach
Every school and district knows FERPA governs student records, and almost none have noticed what it does not say. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act regulations at 34 CFR part 99 address consent, permissible disclosure, parental access and recordkeeping. They do not contain a breach notification requirement at all. The obligation to tell families that student data was exposed comes from state law, not from the federal statute everyone names.
That gap matters because the notification population is unusually sensitive. Student records combine identifiers, dates of birth and household information for minors, who will not discover misuse of their identity for years, and the same systems typically hold staff payroll and parent payment data alongside them.
FERPA does impose something useful in an incident, though schools rarely think of it that way: a requirement to maintain a record of each request for access to and each disclosure of personally identifiable information from a student education record. If that log is accurate, it is the fastest way to establish what actually left. If it is not, the investigation starts from nothing.
Our Comprehensive List of Cyber Coverage Operations
Don’t leave your organization’s security to chance. Explore our comprehensive list of coverage operations.
First-Party Coverage
If your systems go down or your data is stolen, this pays to get you back up and running, covering data recovery, lost income during downtime, and extortion demands, not just the IT bill.
See What’s CoveredThird-Party Coverage
If someone sues you because their data was exposed through your business, this covers your legal defense, regulatory fines, and settlement costs instead of coming out of your own pocket.
See What’s CoveredAdditional Coverages
Round out your policy with crisis PR support, breach-prep services, and employee security training, the pieces that keep a bad day from becoming a bad year.
See What’s CoveredThe Cyber Insurance Group Match
Our named process for finding the right coverage for your education business, fast and without the guesswork.
Tell us about your business
We ask what data you handle, what systems you run, and where your actual exposure lives before we talk price.
We match you across carriers
We compare options across 12+ A-rated carriers and explain the differences in limits, exclusions, and deductibles.
You’re protected
Nothing is bound until you approve. Once covered, we track renewals and revisit coverage as your business grows.
The Rules That Reach Education Businesses
Schools hold identity data about minors, whose misuse may not surface for years, in systems shared across many buildings.
What This Means for Your Business
The FERPA regulations at 34 CFR part 99 govern consent, disclosure, parental access and recordkeeping for student education records. They contain no breach notification requirement, so the duty to notify families after an incident comes from state law instead. FERPA does require a record of each request for access to and each disclosure of personally identifiable information, which is often the fastest way to establish what left Source.
Real Licenses, Not a Marketing Claim
Cyber Insurance Group is a brand of The Allen Thomas Group, independent since 2003 and holding active insurance licenses in all 28 states we serve. No single insurer signs our paychecks. With 12+ A-rated carriers to choose from, our job is matching your business to the coverage that actually wants it.
Carriers we work with include Chubb, Travelers, The Hartford, Liberty Mutual, Nationwide, Progressive, Cincinnati Insurance, Auto-Owners, AmTrust, and Western Reserve Group. Not every carrier writes in every state.
See our full state-by-state license numbers, or meet the team behind the site.
Before You Decide
The objections we actually hear from business owners, answered straight.
Does FERPA require a school to notify families after a data breach?
No, and this surprises almost everyone. The FERPA regulations govern consent, permissible disclosure, parental access and recordkeeping. They contain no breach notification requirement. Any duty to tell families that student data was exposed comes from your state’s breach notification law, not from the federal statute that governs student records.
Why are schools and districts targeted so often?
Because interruption is intolerable and defenses are usually thin. A district that cannot run classes, transport students or process payroll is under immediate public pressure, and the systems involved are frequently old, broadly shared and administered by a small team covering many buildings.
What makes student data different from other personal data?
The people in it are minors. A child’s identity can be misused for years before anyone checks, because nobody is monitoring credit for a nine-year-old. That raises the duration of the harm and, in practice, the cost and sensitivity of the notification.
Does FERPA help at all during an incident?
In one practical way. It requires an educational agency or institution to maintain a record of each request for access to and each disclosure of personally identifiable information from a student’s education records. Where that log is accurate it is the fastest route to establishing what actually left your systems.
Are private schools, daycares and tutoring centers in the same position?
Broadly yes on the data, and often worse on resources. They hold student and family records, payment details and frequently health information, usually with no dedicated technology staff at all. Whether FERPA applies depends on federal funding, but state breach notification law applies regardless.
What does cyber liability insurance not cover for a school?
It does not cover an employment claim, an abuse allegation or a general liability matter, each of which belongs to a different policy. It does not pay to modernize the systems that made the incident possible. It covers the response, the notification to families and staff, the liability and the interruption.
Ready to See What You’d Pay?
Independent agents, 12+ A-rated carriers, and a licensed cyber liability specialist reviewing your submission.
No cost to get a quote. Nothing is bound until you approve.
Which Federal Rules Actually Reach You?
FERPA follows the funding, not the ownership, and taking federal student aid can trigger two separate federal regimes at once.
Childcare
You hold the cleanest identity data that exists, belonging to people who cannot check a credit file for another fifteen years.
See Childcare CoverageColleges & Trade Schools
The Safeguards Rule reaches you through the contract you signed for federal student aid, and a finding threatens the aid itself.
See Institution CoverageK-12 Districts
A district is a transport, food service and payroll operation that also teaches, running thousands of devices inside children’s homes.
See District CoveragePrivate Schools
FERPA may not reach your school at all, and you hold donor records a public district never has.
See Private School Coverage