Looking Again At Cyber Liability Coverage

In one of our earlier Arizona Blogs, we wrote about the vast number of websites that been hacked, exposing some very personal and confidential information of individuals ranging from politicians to some famous celebrities. It seems like every other day, there is a major cyber attack exposing clients’ information such as credit card numbers, bank account numbers, social security numbers as well as health records, to name a few of the many things that were exposed.

If you are one of the thousands of businesses that do transactions over the web, especially with what is happening now, you need to take a serious look at acquiring Arizona Cyber Liability Insurance coverage to protect your business and your assets. When talking with clients about this coverage, clients usually agree that cyber attacks are a problem for businesses, but for them, they feel that the chances of it happening to their websites are very minimal. This is unfortunate since attacks are happening at an unprecedented rate, and the average cost of a website being hacked nationwide now runs over a quarter of a million dollars.

Another area of concern is that most company owners don’t realize just what an important gap they have in their current insurance policies until a cyber attack has occurred, and the company may now be vulnerable to serious lawsuits from the cyber attack. It is simply amazing that company owners understand the threat of a cyber attack, yet less than forty percent of them actually have a cyber policy.

A recent article in a local newspaper reported that over the past year, there were over four thousand attacks that were reported, potentially exposing personal health, financial, or other confidential information for millions of clients. It would be interesting to know just how many of those affected had cyber liability coverage. I’m sure if they didn’t, they wished they would have had that type of coverage.

In talking with potential clients about how these types of policies are priced, one of the first things the underwriter will look at is what type of company it is. Does the company get a majority of its sales from their website, how much information is taken, such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, or whether your company deals with confidential client health records, which is definitely a high risk category. If your company falls under one of those scenarios, your site will have a higher risk of a cyber attack, and, therefore, the premium will be adjusted higher. In looking over what level of cyber liability coverage is needed, I would recommend sitting down with a professional insurance agent who has the knowledge to devise a plan to fit your particular business.

In addition to securing a cyber liability policy, we also suggest that you have your website put through a complete review, starting with any obvious concerns, passwords to see if they are secure enough, or is it in need of an upgrade? Also, it would be beneficial in the event that if your site is hacked, you have a written set of instructions on exactly what steps need to taken and who would be responsible to carry out the various steps. Consider hiring a professional IT consultant to review your entire system and website to make recommendations where you could beef up your virtual private networks, anti-spam and anti-virus software, and mobile applications to make sure that they are secure enough, or what can be done to upgrade your system to make it as safe as possible.

Over the past ten years or so, technology has evolved at an alarming pace, and what we thought impossible 10 years ago, is now just a common occurrence. Can you imagine what it will be in the next five years? The only thing that we can predict for the future is that no matter how far we have come with security for our systems, hackers will not take a break from enhancing their skills to find more ingenious ways to create cyber attacks.

Today, your company has more options and insurance companies that provide Cyber Liability Insurance than ever before, so we urge you to consider obtaining a quote if you are having concerns on how a breach on your website would affect your business. Please call PJO Insurance Brokerage to have one of our insurance professionals design a specific plan for your company.

Written By:

PJO Insurance Brokerage
By Patrick O’ Neill
4103 E. Prickly Pear Trail
Phoenix, Arizona 85050