What is your main concern when it comes to business?
Ask any business owner and you will VERY likely get the same answer: cyber attacks!
Cyberattacks remain the number one concern for most business owners.
And there is a good reason for that.
Contemporary research concluded that in 2018 there were three times as many medical industry computer data breaches in the medical industry than the previous year, with over 15 million medical records exposed!
A 2019 independent investigation led researchers to these findings: There were over 1,200 data breaches exposing 440 million pieces of personal data!
But of all the studies, this conclusion resonates the most with average business owners. Fifty-eight percent of the total number of cyberattacks in 2018 targeted small businesses. Swallow that statistic along with another: Data breach recovery expenses averaged around $385,000. all Perhaps most notable is Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report for the same year: 58 percent of all cyberattacks were directed at small businesses, with recovery costs averaging close to $385,000.
What can a company, large, small or medium, do to protect itself from becoming the target of a cyber attack? Aside from learned and technical security tactics, a related insurance policy can be the catalyst for helping you get out of the mess created by hackers, with coverage paying for associated losses.
Here are just a couple of examples associated with claims that prove the point.
Two Data Breach Insurance Claim Scenarios
Ransomware coverage
An employee working in one of the departments of a global agency accidentally opened an email that exposed the company’s computer system to a virus, potentially impacting as many as 660 servers worldwide.
The agency hired a global IT forensics firm to deal with the misfortune. This included obtaining the ransom amount the hacker demanded, negotiating with the criminals, and completing a forensic investigation.
After the IT forensics team got the hackers down from the first ransom demand of $540,000 to $450,000, the insurance coverage stepped in, paid the ransom, allowing the decryption to go ahead.
Negligence Coverage:
A patient was furious when she found out that a nurse employed at the doctor’s office where she had been treated exposed her medical records. She accused the nurse of passing her private medical records and her personal data to other people. Adding insult to injury, the patient said, was that the nurse altered her records to include false information intended to humiliate her.
The doctor’s office issued a statement that there is a permanent policy not to allow access and disclosure of patient information. However, the nurse had crossed the lines of the professional creed established by medical practice.
The matter was resolved by a 5-digit out-of-court settlement that the insurance company covered.