I recently met with my insurance agent, Steve Breitbart from Cypress Insurance Group. Steve handles all my property and casualty (P&C) insurance. We met to look at some new quotes for my P&C coverage. Boring stuff to me, but Steve makes it easy to discuss and decide on a course of action.

We were talking about new cyber liability insurance coverage, and Steve kept answering some of my questions with “Depends”, not the adult diapers!

A few years ago, I purchased a cyber liability insurance policy. This type of policy makes a lot of sense for a firm like mine. I’m entrusted with a lot of client data, and I need to keep it safe and secure. There is always risk that something can happen, so just like a smart business person has P&C insurance on their property, cyber liability insurance mitigates the risk for data breaches and information leaks, including loss of business, communication with customers, and other professional fees related to dealing with the situation. To learn more, here is an excellent intro article that explains cyber insurance by the folks at Intuit.

I was amazed at the amount of changes that had occurred in the product in just the past couple of years. Steve had so much advice to share, I even asked him to let me give him a call so I could record it and share it with you here. I know a lot of people think, “Well, my data is stored in the cloud, and the cloud vendor is responsible for the security.”

Nope – you are ultimately responsible!

So whether your data is stored onsite or in the cloud, every business needs a cyber policy in place. Make sure you have coverage, and review it each year as the product is moving fast to keep up with all the swift changes of technology.

Of course, the best defense is a good offense. Training your team on how to spot risks, like phishing attacks and malware, is a must. Your IT systems needs to be actively maintained to minimize your exposure.

Cyber liability insurance really is like "Depends" – if an accident happens, you’ve got a bit of financial backup to weather the crisis (and I am grossed out just writing that). Here’s to hoping you never need it. Let me know what you think - drop me a line at dbennett@connections.com.