National Cyber Security Awareness Month

October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month

The Department of Homeland Security is a prime resource for individuals and businesses regarding the potential risks we are increasingly subject to in this highly technological environment. Desert Mountain Insurance is also a prime resource to ensure that you are educated on the available options to protect yourself and your business against the risk and astronomical cost associated with a potential threat or breach.

Each policy is different and can vary greatly between their insuring agreements, policy definitions, and policy exclusions. This is definitely a coverage that should be discussed with one of our insurance professionals!

The purpose of Cyber Liability is to cover costs incurred as a result of network and information security breach, communications and media liability, and regulatory defense expenses. Many Cyber Liability / Privacy Liability, policies provide protection for the areas listed below.

First Party Cyber Liability Insurance options:

Crisis management and reward expense
E-business interruption and extra expense
E-theft loss
E-communications loss
E-threat expense
E-vandalism expense
Security breach remediation and notification expense / Privacy notification expense
Computer program and electronic data restoration expenses
Computer fraud
Funds transfer fraud
E-commerce extortion

Third Party Cyber Liability Insurance options:

Disclosure Injury
Content Injury
Reputational injury
Conduit injury
Impaired-access injury

Who should consider a Cyber Liability / Privacy Liability policy?

Any business that collects information such as:

Personal information: social security #’s, driver’s license, dates of birth
Financial information: credit cards, bank accounts
Confidential information: health records

Or:

Any business looking to avoid an unexpected, potentially million-dollar claim associated with a security or data breach!
A large corporation with deep pockets and large amounts of data with a sophisticated security plan in place
A small business - Do not fall under the misconception that these attacks only happen to large corporations. Small businesses can be subject to attacks as well as the careless or unintentional acts of current or past employees.

Still not convinced? Here are a couple of brief scenarios where a Cyber Liability / Privacy Liability policy would benefit you:

A medical office employee receives an email with a malware program. The computer system, including their EMR, is compromised. The software allows the third party access to all current and past patient names, personally identifiable information and protected health information.
A home health agency employee is traveling from one patient’s home to another. They have their laptop in their vehicle and stop for lunch. The laptop is stolen from the employee’s car. Access to patient private information is obtained.

A Cyber Liability policy would respond to claims such as these by potentially providing defense coverage, reimbursement for certain out-of-pocket expenses and liability coverage. The current theory should not be “if” a breach will occur, but “when” will it occur. It is important to make sure that you are partnering with an insurance professional that will understand and evaluate your currently liability policies and effectively provide recommendations regarding this valuable coverage.

Please contact Desert Mountain Insurance to set up a meeting to review your insurance policies.