Bricking Coverage

Bricking coverage reimburses the cost to replace or restore computer hardware, servers, or IoT and connected devices that a covered cyber event has rendered permanently inoperable. The term comes from equipment being turned into "a brick" — functionally dead — even though it shows no physical damage. This typically happens when malware, ransomware, or a malicious firmware attack corrupts a device so thoroughly that it cannot be re-flashed or restored, forcing a full hardware replacement. It is an extension found in modern cyber liability policies.

For a small-business buyer, this matters because of a coverage gap that trips up many owners: commercial property and equipment breakdown policies generally require direct physical loss, and a bricked device is not physically damaged — its electronics are intact but its software is destroyed. Meanwhile, many base cyber forms pay to restore data but stop short of buying new hardware. Bricking coverage bridges that gap, funding the sometimes substantial cost of replacing routers, point-of-sale terminals, industrial controllers, or a fleet of devices after an attack. Without it, a business could recover its data yet still face a large out-of-pocket bill for the machines to run it on.

A practical nuance: bricking coverage is almost always subject to a sublimit and frequently applies only to hardware owned or leased by the insured that was affected by the same event triggering other cyber coverage. Buyers should confirm whether the coverage pays replacement cost or depreciated value, whether it extends to devices at remote or employee locations, and how it interacts with system failure and business-interruption terms. Because the definition of a "covered cyber event" governs the trigger, it should be read alongside the policy's ransomware and cyber extortion agreements.