Few industries have a greater need for effective cybersecurity training than insurance. Insurers store vast amounts of sensitive information like personal identifiers, financial data, medical records, and Social Security numbers, which makes insurance organizations a prime target for cybercriminals.
To complicate the situation further, artificial intelligence (AI) is helping bad actors create more convincing scams and deploy them at a greater scale. According to Verizon's 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report, 62% of breaches worldwide involve the human element. One thing that has become clear is annual cybersecurity training alone is no longer enough to keep pace with such an ambitious moving target like cyber hygiene. Insurance organizations must rethink how they train employees and adopt more engaging (and frequent) approaches than what regulations mandate.
The Unique Challenges of Cybersecurity Training in Insurance
One of the biggest challenges in cybersecurity training is getting people to care. While insurance regulations mandate cybersecurity training, checking a regulatory box does not create lasting behavioral change. In fact, the word "compliance" often puts employees in a frame of mind that is counter to what the trainer wants, which is an engaged employee.
Cybersecurity professionals spend their days immersed in technical concepts, but most employees do not. A significant portion of the trainer's role involves translating highly technical security measures into practical guidance that employees can understand and apply in their daily work.
That challenge is amplified in insurance because every role interacts with risk differently. Executives, claims adjusters, underwriters, agents, brokers, customer service representatives, actuaries, and policy administrators all face different cybersecurity threats and responsibilities. An annual one-size-fits-all approach rarely works.
The stakes are high because insurers possess information that cybercriminals actively seek. These employees are targeted more frequently because attackers understand the value of the data insurers protect. That means trainers must continuously reinforce strong cyber hygiene habits and help employees recognize evolving threats before they become incidents.
Cybersecurity Trainers Must Think Like Marketers
Many trainers understand their job is to improve cybersecurity awareness. Fewer recognize that they are also competing for attention. Meaningful behavior change requires continuing engagement and repeated touchpoints. That is why cybersecurity trainers should borrow proven principles from marketing. I use my own framework called SURE to reinforce this throughout all my work.
Simple. Communication should be easy to understand. Use shorter words, shorter sentences, and straightforward explanations. Respect employees' time. The faster people can grasp a message, the more likely they are to act on it.
Useful. Content should provide immediate value. Marketers rarely rely on a single content format. They create webinars, blog posts, white papers, videos, newsletters, and social content, often repurposing the same message across multiple channels. Trainers should adopt the same mindset.
Emotionally Resonant. People respond to messages that connect emotionally and feel relevant. Consider the difference between a training titled "Annual Cybersecurity Training Overview" and one called "How to Spot Scams and Protect Sensitive Information." The second emphasizes action and outcomes. It immediately answers the question every employee asks: Why should I care?
Easy to Skim. Content should be easy to skim, with clear hierarchy, thoughtful formatting, and strategic use of bullets, visuals, and spacing. The easier the information is to consume, the more likely employees are to remember it.
These principles may come from marketing, but they are equally valuable in training. Additionally, rather than relying on traditional classroom training alone, organizations should use approaches that help employees stay engaged, retain information, and put their learning into practice.
Using AI to Make Training More Engaging
Leveraging gamification is another way to make learning more interactive. An example of this is conducting monthly phishing simulations. Employees who correctly identify and report suspicious emails can earn points that accumulate toward recognition or rewards. Over time, this creates positive reinforcement and turns cybersecurity awareness into a continuing activity.
Artificial intelligence makes these exercises even more valuable. Instead of sending the same generic phishing email to every employee, AI can help trainers generate realistic scenarios tailored to specific roles. A procurement employee might receive a fake vendor invoice. An executive could receive a spoofed message that appears to come from a board member. New hires and experienced employees can receive different scenarios based on their responsibilities and risk profiles.
This level of personalization matters because attackers are already doing it. Cybercriminals are using AI to create increasingly convincing messages that mirror real business communications. An estimated 3.4 billion phishing emails reach inboxes every day, and approximately 82.6% are now AI-generated. If threat actors are becoming more sophisticated, cybersecurity training must evolve at the same pace.
Leveraging AI and Video for Microlearning
The problem is that this evolution is near impossible to accomplish in an annual seminar. New phishing emails happen every hour. Instead, organizations should embrace microlearning, the practice of delivering information in short, focused, and easily digestible formats. Rather than asking employees to sit through a singular lengthy training session where unique phishing tips might be lost on them by the end, organizations can provide quick learning moments for new individual scams or threat tactics as they happen and reinforce critical concepts. Historically, this would take too much time and bandwidth of a training team (which typically is not large even in a large company). But AI tools are making it easier now.
For example, to make short, quick videos, one approach is to use Camtasia Snagit's step-capture functionality to document a singular process by automatically capturing images of each step. Those images can then be imported into Camtasia.ai and transformed into a short instructional video complete with AI-generated narration and transcription. There are other technologies and means of doing this that help trainers create professional learning content that is easy to update and distribute.
It becomes a lighter lift and the training is more timely, more relevant, and more likely to be consumed by busy employees.
Cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated, personalized, and difficult to detect. As AI continues to reshape the threat landscape, cybersecurity training must evolve as well. Insurance organizations need to evolve training programs from what's mandatory to a continuous, engaging, and tailored approach to the realities employees face every day. That means leveraging AI, embracing microlearning, incorporating gamification, and adopting the communication techniques that marketers have used successfully for years.
The goal is still to make training clear, but it is also to make it memorable. In an industry where one click can lead to a significant breach, creating training that employees actually remember may be one of the most important security investments an insurer can make.
