Why Existing Attack Surface Tools Are Failing Insurance Brokers

TL;DR: SecurityScorecard, UpGuard, and Bitsight dominate the $1.25B external attack surface management (EASM) market. But they built their products for enterprise vendor risk management teams - not for insurance brokers who need to submit risk data to carriers. Brokers need financial exposure estimates in euros, underwriter-ready PDFs, and binding recommendations. The existing tools give them letter grades and six-figure price tags. Resiliently’s Broker Scorecard fills the gap with a free domain scan and EUR49/month Pro tier.

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The Broker’s Dilemma

Insurance brokers sit at the center of a growing information gap. Carriers are hardening cyber insurance requirements - demanding more data, more granularity, and more quantification than ever before. Premiums are rising, terms are tightening, and underwriters are rejecting submissions that lack detailed risk assessments.

Meanwhile, the tools that could help brokers assess their clients’ cyber risk were never designed for them.

The external attack surface management market hit $1.25 billion in 2026 and is projected to reach $5 billion by 2034 (21% CAGR). The dominant players - SecurityScorecard, UpGuard, Bitsight - serve the Fortune 500’s third-party risk management teams. Their pricing, workflows, and output formats reflect this.

Brokers are an afterthought.

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The Three Gaps

1. Pricing Designed for Enterprise TPRM Budgets

SecurityScorecard’s enterprise contracts range from $50,000 to $150,000+ per year. UpGuard’s platform licensing starts around $30,000. Bitsight commands similar six-figure deals.

These price points make sense for a large bank assessing 2,000 vendors. They make no sense for an independent broker assessing 50 client portfolios.

• Per-entity licensing means every client you assess costs more
• Enterprise sales cycles mean demos, procurement, and legal review
• Minimum commitments exclude smaller brokerages entirely

The result: most brokers have no dedicated cyber risk assessment tool. They rely on carrier-provided questionnaires, manual spreadsheet analysis, or simply skip the assessment step altogether - increasing submission rejection rates and leaving coverage gaps.

2. Outputs Built for Security Teams, Not Underwriters

SecurityScorecard gives you an A-F letter grade. UpGuard produces a 0-950 numeric score. Bitsight offers a security rating with forecasting.

None of these map to what carriers actually need at binding time:

What Incumbents Deliver	What Brokers & Carriers Need
Letter grade (A-F)	Financial exposure estimate (EUR)
Aggregate security score	Per-asset risk breakdown
Technical finding list	Underwriter-ready PDF report
Industry percentile ranking	Industry benchmark with binding guidance
Quarterly scan	Continuous or on-demand assessment

The core problem: letter grades don’t translate to premium calculations. An underwriter can’t price a policy based on a B-. They need to know: what is the expected loss given the current attack surface?

3. No Workflow for Broker-Carrier Submission

The existing tools were designed for one workflow: a large enterprise assessing its vendors. They weren’t designed for the broker workflow:

• Run a quick scan on a prospective client
• Generate a PDF that speaks the carrier’s language
• Benchmark against industry peers
• Provide a binding recommendation range
• Repeat across dozens of clients

This is not a feature gap they’re planning to fill. It’s a market gap - and it sits directly at the intersection of cyber risk quantification (CRQ) and insurance brokerage.

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The Market Tailwind: Cyber Risk Quantification

The CRQ market was worth $340 million in 2024 and is projected to hit $900 million by 2033 - a 12% CAGR. This growth is driven by exactly the pressures brokers face:

• Cyber insurance hardening - carriers demanding quantified, financial-denominated risk data
• Regulatory pressure - NIS2, DORA, and SEC rules requiring demonstrable risk management
• CISO frustration - 70% of large businesses have been breached by unknown or unmanaged assets, according to industry research

The incumbent security rating platforms address the first wave of this demand (visibility). But the second wave - quantification in financial terms, delivered in the right format for insurance workflows - is still wide open.

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What Brokers Actually Need

A broker assessing a mid-market manufacturer for a EUR2M cyber insurance policy needs:

1. Free initial scan - to evaluate risk before engaging the prospect
2. Financial exposure range - not a score, but a euro-denominated estimate of probable loss
3. Underwriter-ready PDF - formatted for carrier submission, with clear findings and context
4. Industry benchmarks - how does this client compare to peers in their sector?
5. Affordable scale - assess 20, 50, or 100 clients without multiplying the cost

This is exactly what Resiliently’s Domain Exposure Checker and Broker Scorecard deliver.

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Resiliently’s Approach

The Domain Exposure Checker is a free tool that scans any domain portfolio and returns:

• Complete asset inventory (subdomains, IPs, technologies)
• Critical security findings mapped to financial exposure
• Industry peer comparison
• One-click PDF export

For brokers who need to submit professional risk assessments to carriers, the Broker Scorecard at EUR49/month adds:

• Unlimited client scorecards
• Binding recommendation ranges
• Carrier-ready PDF reports
• Portfolio-wide risk aggregation

No enterprise sales cycle. No per-entity licensing. No letter grades that underwriters ignore.

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The Bottom Line

SecurityScorecard, UpGuard, and Bitsight built excellent tools - for enterprise TPRM teams with six-figure budgets. They did not build tools for insurance brokers who need financial exposure estimates, underwriter-ready PDFs, and affordable pricing.

The hardening cyber insurance market is creating a new category of demand. Brokers need tools that speak the language of carriers - euros, not letter grades. And they need them at a price point that reflects the economics of brokerage, not enterprise vendor management.

That gap is now being filled.

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Try it yourself: Scan any domain for free at the Domain Exposure Checker. For unlimited scorecards, underwriter-ready PDFs, and binding recommendations, upgrade to the Broker Scorecard at EUR49/month.

Disclaimer: The financial exposure ranges provided are estimates for informational purposes only and do not constitute underwriting advice. Consult your carrier’s specific underwriting guidelines. Resiliently.ai is not a licensed insurance intermediary.