SOFIAH NICHOLE SALIVIO

News Editor

CyberCube has partnered with Affinity Marketplace to integrate cyber insurance quoting into a single broker workflow, targeting the SME cyber insurance market.

The partnership combines Affinity Marketplace’s quoting process with CyberCube’s Broking Manager software, which provides information on a client’s cyber risk profile. The integrated setup is designed to help brokers discuss financial exposure and compare risk transfer options without leaving the same system.

SME cyber insurance has been held back by a lack of specialist knowledge, the challenge of explaining technical risk to smaller businesses, and the time brokers need to place cover. The integrated process is intended to reduce those points of friction for generalist brokers and their clients.

CyberCube’s Broking Manager generates reports on company-specific financial exposure, along with benchmarking data on policy limits and cover structures. Affinity Marketplace provides the digital environment where brokers can obtain automated quotes.

Nate Brink, Head of Broker Sales & Account Management at CyberCube, said the model addresses both economic and training challenges in the market.

“This strategic relationship between CyberCube and Affinity Marketplace solves the margin and education crunch that has long plagued the SME cyber insurance sector. By automating the quoting process directly alongside actionable exposure data within the same workflow, brokers can instantly demonstrate real risk without using complex technical jargon,” Brink said.

The approach allows brokers to stay within one system from the initial client discussion through to quotation. It also presents cyber risk in business terms that smaller companies can relate to when deciding whether to buy insurance and how much cover to take.

Founded in 2023, Affinity Marketplace focuses on digital distribution for specialty insurance. Its platform connects brokers and agents with managing general agents, carriers, and technology providers across quoting, binding, renewals, and carrier connectivity.

Andrew Suesserman, Co-founder of Affinity Marketplace, said: “Affinity Marketplace is all about giving brokers the tools they need to scale efficiently, and this collaboration with CyberCube does exactly that. We’ve combined rapid, automated cyber quoting with clear risk diagnostics in a single environment. This removes the complex jargon that usually stalls SME sales and gives generalist brokers the confidence to advise on exposures and limits like seasoned cyber specialists. We can’t wait to see our brokers leverage this to unlock new, highly profitable growth.”

Broker response

Wholesure, which uses the combined setup, said the integration has changed how its brokers and retail agents handle SME cyber placements. The brokerage cited a shortage of cyber specialists across the market as a barrier to broader take-up among smaller businesses.

Kevin Merchant, National Cyber Practise Leader at Wholesure, said: “With too few cyber specialists in the market today, closing the critical SME protection gap has felt like an uphill battle. Combining Affinity Marketplace with CyberCube has been an absolute game changer for our brokers, retail agents, and the insureds we protect. By utilizing Affinity Marketplace, our brokers gain instant access to seamless, efficient cyber quotes, eliminating the traditional friction of the placement process. Coupled with CyberCube’s robust financial loss impact and benchmark reports, our retail agents are equipped with the exact data-driven storytelling tools they need to educate insureds. We can present small business owners with clear, quantified evidence of their true financial exposure and show them how their peers are structuring their risk transfer.”

CyberCube was established within Symantec in 2015 and has operated as an independent company since 2018. It provides cyber risk analytics software to insurance institutions and has offices in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, London, and Tallinn.

The partnership is available through the Affinity platform.

David Lincoln who lives in Barton, said delivery problems have been ongoing for around five years.

The 73-year-old said: “You get it, then it goes away, then it starts again. It’s beyond a joke and getting ridiculous.”

Residents receive emails apologising for “resourcing issues” at the Oxford East delivery office.

But, Mr Lincoln claims two staff are still sent out on rounds and “take it in turns” to prioritise parcels one week, with letters left to the following week.

He said he has waited longer than his bank’s specified timeframe for a new card and missed hospital appointments because of delayed letters.

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With multiple health conditions, he says the uncertainty around when post will turn up is causing “growing anxiety”.

A Royal Mail spokesperson said: “We know how important it is for letters to arrive on time, particularly where they relate to hospital appointments.

“Our latest results show 92 per cent of letters arrive on time and more than 99% arrive within a week. However, some delivery offices can be temporarily affected by local issues such as sick absence.

“We list areas experiencing temporary disruption on our service updates page, which includes Oxford East Delivery Office. We are working to get services back to normal and, where mail is delayed, we aim to deliver it the following day.”

JobSpace AI has published research showing that 35% of UK job applications fall below the threshold needed to progress to interview. The findings are based on an analysis of 5,782 CV scans matched against UK job descriptions.

The data challenges the long-circulated claim that 75% of CVs are rejected automatically before a recruiter reads them. Instead, the figures suggest most applications in the sample reached a level classed as interview-ready, while a sizeable minority did not.

Of the 5,782 CVs analysed, 64.5% scored 75 or above, which JobSpace AI classed as interview-ready. Another 22.4% scored between 50 and 74 and were deemed at risk of rejection, while 13.1% scored below 50 and were considered likely to be filtered out before reaching a recruiter.

The research drew on CV scans submitted by UK job seekers and assessed against job descriptions supplied by the same users. The sample covered submissions made over a four-month period and was based on actual candidate documents rather than recruiter surveys or modelled estimates.

Keyword gap

A smaller subset of 248 CVs received full keyword analysis. In that group, candidates matched an average of 48% of the keywords in the job descriptions they targeted and missed 9.1 keywords per application on average.

The missing terms were most often linked to process and governance rather than technical expertise. Phrases such as continuous improvement, compliance, customer service, SLA or service levels, change management, and stakeholder management appeared regularly in job adverts but were often absent from applicants’ CVs.

That pattern suggests the issue for many applicants lies less in their underlying experience than in how they describe it. Recruiters and screening systems often look for the language used in role specifications, especially in functions where process, oversight, and service delivery feature heavily.

“The gap most candidates don’t see isn’t a skills gap – it’s a language gap,” said Nicholas Barooah, Founder, JobSpace AI.

“Job adverts are written around frameworks and processes. Most CVs describe what someone achieved without using the governance and process terminology recruiters are screening for. Candidates who bridge that gap move from the 35% to the 65% – often with relatively small changes to how they describe existing experience,” Barooah said.

Myth questioned

The findings also cast doubt on one of the most frequently repeated claims in careers advice: that three quarters of CVs are screened out automatically. According to JobSpace AI, that figure has circulated for years across careers media, social media posts, and CV-writing services, but lacks a traceable primary source.

Its analysis points to a different picture. Automated filtering remains part of recruitment practice, but the results suggest the bigger issue is not universal exclusion by software. Instead, a notable share of applicants may be weakening their prospects by failing to reflect the wording and priorities set out in job adverts.

That distinction matters because it shifts attention away from the idea of a closed system and towards one in which many applications can be improved. For candidates whose CVs fall into the middle band or lower-scoring group, the data suggests relatively modest revisions in terminology and alignment may affect whether an application progresses.

How scoring worked

The scoring model assessed keyword alignment, formatting compatibility, and role-seniority match. Each CV was measured against a real job description, and the resulting score was used to place the application into one of three categories.

The research focused on UK users and was intended to reflect real-world submissions rather than hypothetical tests. Because job seekers provided the documents voluntarily, the dataset offers a snapshot of how candidates are currently presenting themselves in live applications.

The figures also underline the competitive nature of recruitment, even when most CVs are not screened out immediately. A document that reaches a recruiter is not necessarily a strong contender, particularly when employers compare applicants on closely matched wording, evidence of process knowledge, and relevance to the stated brief.

For applicants, the results point to the importance of reading job descriptions closely and mirroring terms that accurately reflect their experience. The most commonly absent phrases in the sample were not specialist jargon, but standard language around operations, governance, and delivery.

JobSpace AI said its platform has analysed more than 5,000 real UK job applications since launch, and the latest sample adds to that picture by quantifying how many candidates may be missing interview thresholds because of wording rather than lack of experience.