Chronic Loneliness in High-Stakes Ecosystems · Part 2
6 min read
IN THIS ARTICLE
Part 2. Part 1 was published on December 10, 2025.
D&O insurance protects directors and officers, and often the company, from personal financial loss when sued for alleged wrongful acts, mismanagement decisions, or breaches of duty while running the business
Virtually, every Directors & Officers (D&O) policy and every commercial Crime/Cyber policy in force today contains one or more of the following standard exclusions that are triggered the moment the pain of chronic loneliness is successfully weaponized:
the executive consciously bypassed controls, shared keys, and exfiltrated data over weeks/months. Not a momentary lapse; but hundreds of deliberate choices.
The insured person, often happens to be an executive who is in a continuously distressed painful state due to his/her work, intentionally and repeatedly bypassed security controls, disabled MFA, whitelisted attacker IPs, transmitted credentials, SSH keys, source code, unreleased trial data, etc.
From the insurer’s perspective, these were conscious, deliberate actions performed over weeks or months, not the result of a single click on a phishing link
‘Bill Smittz’ (described in Part 1) was not tricked in a moment of weakness; he made hundreds of affirmative decisions while believing he was helping or protecting the one person who ended his state of chronic loneliness
Insurers classify this as intentional conduct by an insured person, which voids coverage under virtually all D&O Side A, B, and C coverage parts
2. ‘Voluntary Parting’ or ‘Voluntary Disclosure’ Exclusion (standard in Crime and Social Engineering Fraud Clauses in the D&O insurance coverage):
loss from ‘voluntary giving or surrendering’ of property or information induced by deception; voluntary in the eyes of carriers (=insurers) and courts.
Classic wording. Below: examples from actual policies:
‘Loss resulting directly or indirectly from voluntary giving or surrendering of Money, Securities or Property in any exchange or purchase induced by Trick, Deception or Fraud.’
‘Loss due to an Employee voluntarily providing access credentials, authentication factors, or disclosing confidential information to any third party.’
The chronically lonely executive literally volunteers the crown jewels because the emotional payoff, i.e. continued attachment, fear of abandonment, love-bombing reinforcement. Each of them is a significant force to outweigh any rational calculation, to reduce the pain of chronic loneliness
Courts and claims adjusters have consistently ruled that prolonged, escalating disclosure of this type is ‘voluntary’, even when the victim was emotionally manipulated
Chronic loneliness and its behavioral markers, be that late night activities, painful state of social isolation, or attachment avoidance pre-date the attack by months or years
Insurers argue that the ‘circumstance’, in other words, a desperately lonely clearance holder with unrestricted access was known or should have been known to the company long before the first LinkedIn message arrived, making any subsequent loss uninsurable. It is always ‘impressive’ to see LinkedIn members quoting their existing or past security clearance. That makes life for a ‘bad actor’ so much easier; when open access is voluntarily provided
the victim receives perceived emotional/romantic benefit; enough to trigger this exclusion even without financial gain.
Even though no money went into the executive’s pocket, insurers successfully argue that the executive received a personal advantage: the emotional relief from the pain of chronic loneliness and the perceived romantic and/or sexual relationships
This triggers the classic ‘personal profit or advantage’ exclusion found in every fidelity and crime policy
once the Board labels the conduct dishonest, sadly, D&O coverage evaporates for the individual and often the company
Once the board determines the CTO committed deliberate acts that harmed the company, the ‘final adjudication’ or ‘in fact’ dishonest acts carve-back eliminates coverage for that individual, and the company is left with an exposure
MGM Resorts romance-scam case (2023): $100 m+ loss. Denied under voluntary parting and many other unfortunate examples since then.
Because social engineering driven by chronic loneliness produces prolonged, deliberate, emotionally motivated disclosure rather than a single inadvertent click, carriers treat it exactly the same as if the executive had sold the data for cash on the dark web.
There is currently no mainstream insurance product that will pay a nine- or ten-figure claim when the root cause is a chronically lonely human being who voluntarily handed over the keys to the kingdom to protect a relationship that ended their pain. The author of that is pain.
Until policies are rewritten with explicit ‘emotional manipulation/ chronic loneliness’ sub-limits, these losses remain completely uninsurable under existing D&O and cyber programs.
That is why the only viable mitigation is prevention at the human layer, because the financial safety net simply does not exist once the self-reinforcing attachment loop is triggered.
In Part 1, it is extensively elaborated on why focus of #TOTUM7 specifically targets both key dimensions: attachment avoidance, root cause that creates the opening and the self-reinforcing attachment, a mechanism that makes the extraction inevitable.
Chronic loneliness exploitation produces willing, repeated, emotionally motivated disclosure.
Insurers treat that the same as if the executive sold the data for cash. As of November 2025, these losses remain essentially uninsurable under existing D&O and cyber policies.
Prevention at the human layer is the only option; specifically, when an insurer has already exited an exposure. Prevention seems tricky, but it is straightforward and very honest.
The commitment of TOTUM7 for corporate clientele has always been simple and non-negotiable: Prevention by providing support in detection and continuous monitoring of the invisible pain of chronic loneliness early enough that no one ever again has to trade their safety, their secrets, or their organization’s future for the illusion of being seen.
Bad Actor’s Moonshot Perspective: ‘We no longer look for the weakest password. We look for the loneliest person with the strongest password’.
COMING SOON: Part 3 on LinkedIn #TOTUM7 page will contain a touch of rationale on Chronic Loneliness has become a major force multiplier in cyber warfare. WHY defensive implications are more a ‘Paper tiger’. WHY this is so hard to counter.
Disclaimer: The views and information are not professional advice, and are presented for general purposes only. They may reflect bias or inaccuracy. Please verify independently.
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