Insurance Insights: The Cleary Insurance Blog
The Cleary Insurance blog covers insurance, risk management, and financial planning for New England businesses and individuals. Our team of licensed advisors and specialists publishes regular articles on commercial and personal coverage, employee benefits, life and financial planning, and insurance compliance. Browse recent articles below, or use the category filters to find topics relevant to your business or personal situation.
Should Parents “Go for Broke” on Youth Sports?
Surveys suggest that many parents are willing to make big financial sacrifices to cover these costs, possibly even taking on credit-card debt or delaying retirement. Unfortunately, some parents may have unrealistic expectations, such as those who are confident their children will become professional athletes, despite the very long odds against it. That doesn’t mean parents should give up hope on their kids, instead of spending money themselves, they can discuss the team fundraiser ideas with the school administration. Schools can contact the organizations that could help in acquiring team sponsorships and funds. Those funds can help yours and other children in sports without parents having to take up financial responsibility for it.
Family Relations, April 2016
Cleary Insurance Featured Speaker at The Boston Arts and Business Council’s Seminar
Pictured (L-R): BOSTON A&BC Operations Director Alexa Dearborn, President Jim Grace, Cleary’s Chris Hawthorne, Volunteer Lawyers Association Exec. Director Luke Blackadar.
Cleary Insurance was a featured speaker at the Boston Arts and Business Council’s Seminar for the National Arts Strategies Program. The NAS gathered in Boston to learn about business related topics for artists and art non-profits. Cleary’s Chris Hawthorne led a session on structuring insurance programs for Public Artists and non-profits.
Information Management Liability aka Cyber!
Presented by: Christopher F. Hawthorne, CPCU, CIC
Technology has delivered an exposure for those who hold, use or depend on information be it paper or electronic. Just as inventory once was the life line for a business, data and information now takes their place alongside the tangible assets of a business. This can be data in the form of client records, billing operations, employee files, websites and inventory management. When data or information is shutdown or stolen, it can represent a large loss. The loss can be both a first party loss (out of pocket) and a third-party loss (demanded by another) as well as trigger government action and penalties against the business.
First party losses are out of pocket expenses for a business such as rebuilding lost data, cost of forensic studies to determine what was lost, cost to restore systems and loss of income from business interruption.
In between first- and third-party losses are losses from extortion or ransom. A criminal may demand money to allow a computer system to released from any hold the criminal has on it or to stop a website from being overrun by an attack. While the cost is out of pocket it is caused by a third-party demand.
Third party losses arise when there is damage or loss of another’s data or private information, damage to their hardware or to their website. The cost associated with third party losses are notifying parties of their lost or released information, credit monitoring, defending from law suits, and paying settlements.
In addition, governmental actions (fines and penalties) may arise on both state and Federal levels. It is worth noting, that Massachusetts has the toughest data privacy laws in the nation.
Neither Property nor General Liability insurance pays for these types of losses.
There are several carriers now offering coverage for this exposure and many provide hotlines and proactive risk management assistance. In addition to obtaining this coverage, it is worth reviewing your technical / system support vendor to make sure the job description includes “security and compliance” as opposed to simply having the technology function.
In summary, the Information Management Liability (Cyber) exposure requires the attention of every business from perspective of insurance protection and risk management mitigation. To fail to do so is to put the survival of the business at stake.
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