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Fidens Directors Featured in Ultimate Dining New Publication

The interview can be reviewed here on page 8.

Directors Brian Leidell (Property & Casualty) & Daniel Campbell (Employee Benefits), were interviewed for a risk management article in Ultimate Dining Newest Publication. They provide an overview of risk and insurance aspects that are critical to the long-term success in the hospitality industry. We encourage all restaurateurs to read if they are starting a new business or need a general refresher for management controls.

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5 Factors to Minimize Home-Related Risks

Our home should be a safe haven since it is where we spend most of our time.
Unfortunately, most homes are vulnerable to a number of safety and security risks that require homeowners and renters to take additional steps to mitigate them.
This can include purchasing specific insurance policies to provide additional coverage against factors like flood or theft, using new technology to mitigate or alert family members to various dangers, and training family members on how to recognize and reduce the risks.
Click here to review the five most common security threats and some recommended solutions that can be implemented fairly easily to keep everyone safer.
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Cyber Insurance: The Basics of Coverage

In observance of “Cyber Monday”, a trusted counsel for Fidens Insurance Brokers, Annmarie Giblin Esq. provides an overview of cyber insurance coverage that answers: Who needs cyber insurance? What should companies do before buying a cyber insurance policy? How a cyber policy interacts with professional liability?
Matthew Magner, a Senior Underwriting Officer with Chubb Professional, further discusses the above questions and lists the essential elements of a cyber insurance policy including:
  • Liability insurance for data breaches to cover defense expenses, awards and settlements in connection with a lawsuit;
  • Notification/crisis management expenses, which can include costs for legal counsel, public relations, forensics, drafting and dissemination of notices and credit monitoring
  • Business interruption and extra expense coverage, which will provide lost income and cover expenses to facilitate the insured’s return to operation
  • Electronic vandalism, which provides coverage to pay for blank media and transcription for electronic data corrupted in the event of cyber incident;
  • Extortion coverage to cover ransoms for hackers who hold a network or data hostage; an
  • Defense of regulatory proceedings and coverage for fines and penalties.
We encourage all companies to review the full article found here. It must be stressed that the aspects of each company will vary significantly and it is important to discuss their particular business with an experienced broker to ensure that the appropriate coverage is in place. Fidens Managing Director, Brian Leidell, commented: “When analyzing our diverse new client portfolios, it is alarming the number of companies who were erroneously led to a costly ‘one-size fits all’ cyber policy that is riddled with serious concerns.”
Annmarie Giblin is an attorney for Leader & Berkon LLP and can be contacted here.
Brian Leidell spearheads Fidens innovative cyber insurance program and can be contacted here.
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The Growing Risk of Cyber Liability

As technology becomes more advanced & people’s daily lives rely more on computers, the risk of cyber liability becomes a massive problem for everybody. Business large & small have bullseyes on them & are major targets for hackers. Propertycasualty360.com found “according to the Poneman Institute’s Cost of Cyber Crime Study, there was an 18% increase in the number of cyberattacks in 2013, and a report by Symantec on internet security found that 61% of small and midsize businesses experienced a cyberattack in 2013”. Giant companies such as Target, Home Depot, JP Morgan Chase,eBay, & most notably Sony have suffered cyber breaches in the past year. Jay Shelton the SVP at Assurance wrote that in “October 2013, the National Institute of Standards and Technology proposed a cyber security framework for critical U.S. infrastructure, and it looks like it will be at the top of the agenda for Congress in 2015 with bipartisan support for compromised legislation. This will be a significant change for businesses as they will now be required to have cyber security protocols in place to protect sensitive data and systems, which historically has been voluntary”. Hopefully congress sets a new standard in 2015 to help businesses large & small to protect themselves from cyber liability. Please read on for more details on new & emerging cyber risks.
For more information on how to manage & insure your company’s cyber liability risk- please contact Fidens Insurance for your free consultation.
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Steps to Protect Your Company from Cyber-Breaches

Spear phishing, targeted attacks, zero-day exploits. No matter what you call them, these are the worst, most harmful cyber attacks out there, causing bankruptcy, loss of credibility, and other serious damage. While you might have state‑of‑the‑art protection, there are still some steps that you can take to ensure that you are as safe as can be.
  1. Train your employees. At the end of the day, you and your team are the last line of defense. No matter how good your security is, one employee can unintentionally bring down your entire network. It can be a simple phishing email or, more worrying, a targeted attack. Train your employees on cybersecurity, and give them the tools to protect themselves and your company. Online seminars, team activities, cyber-safety questionnaires, and many other tools are available to help you train your staff.
  2. Stay well informed. New attacks are discovered every day, but even worse, hackers keep developing new evasion techniques to bypass your security. While you might have a team of experts dedicated to security, or just one employee, make sure that you are up to date on industry news. There are many forums, blogs, websites, and newsletters that will keep you on your toes when it comes to cybersecurity innovations.
  3. Watch what you post on social media. Months before a targeted attack is deployed, a team of highly trained hackers plans and designs the attack. For an attack to be successful, it must cause a specific user to open the infected email message and click the attachment. You probably wouldn’t open an attachment if the email message said, “Dear friend, please look at these files.” Attackers understand this degree of caution and therefore meticulously gather information on their target to make sure that the person will open the attachment. Most of the information that attackers gather is from social media, such as Facebook and Twitter. Go over your friends list, and see how many of them are actually friends…
  4. Get those updates! A zero-day exploit focuses on a vulnerability in an application that allows an attacker to infiltrate your system and deploy malware. When a vendor realizes that the application has a vulnerability, the vendor will work on a patch to fix it. Then it’s your turn to update your software to the latest version so that the patch will be installed in your system and will neutralize the effects of the vulnerability. Updates increase your network’s protection.
  5. Choose the right tool for the job. You’ve spent so much money on your business, not counting the hours and hours that you put in to make it a success. Of course, when it came to protecting your network, you installed a state‑of‑the‑art firewall and numerous countermeasures. But did you put in the type of protection that is suitable for combating each kind of threat? Most companies know that they cannot rely on just a single or even dual security platform. Several tools must be combined to ensure complete protection. There are many threats out there, and you need to know which tool can keep you safe from which threat. A platform that specializes in antivirus protection most likely will not safeguard your company from targeted attacks and zero‑day exploits.
For more information on how to internally protect your organization, go to Votiro.com