Trust Premium Decay

Trust Premium Decay treats every security promise an agency makes as a depreciating asset rather than a fixed credential. A SOC 2 badge, an encrypted client portal, or a clean scan earns trust at signature, then loses value as attack surfaces change and the evidence behind the claim ages. Agencies that re-verify on a cadence keep the premium; those that coast on a one-time audit watch it erode quietly until an incident reprices the whole retainer. The framework forces a simple question at renewal: what did we prove this quarter, and when? A concrete example sits in the $4,000+ API bills traced to exposed keys in AI-built client apps, where a single leaked credential converts a trust asset into a liability line item overnight. Pairing periodic re-verification with incident response keeps the premium compounding instead of decaying.