Why Does Cybersecurity Matter for Captive Insurance?
We live in an age where threats to your business’s continuity are numerous and often hidden in the shadows. As technology evolves, new cybersecurity threats emerge daily. Unless you happen to be an IT professional or the company’s CISO, these digital incursions can be ill-defined and mysterious. Regardless, they have to be dealt with to ensure your company’s continued prosperity. Being hit with a data breach can be disastrous. From financial hemorrhaging to the loss of public trust, it’s hard to recover from data loss.
Captive Insurance firms are targeted because hackers know they typically store or have access to a large amount of valuable client data. Like any other business, captive insurance companies have just as many cybersecurity issues as other firms but must be more diligent in their security posture. Two major issues present a recurring theme:
- Crucial security tools and protocols are not in place.
- A proper Risk Assessment has not been performed or is not being performed on a regular basis.
Where captive insurance companies are concerned, there’s a virtual ocean of PII and PHI in danger. After all, this is a market that deals in customer information; proper safeguards are essential. A three-pronged approach is in order:
- Start with a detailed Risk Assessment
- Understand your deficiencies, attack vectors, and humans putting you at risk
- Create and make ongoing modifications to critical policy documents.
How Can Captive Insurance Companies Improve Their Cybersecurity Strategy?
How do captive insurance companies bolster their cybersecurity profile? What are some best practices that companies can inject into their digital profile in order to satisfy the first item in our two-pronged approach to digital risk mitigation?
First, is someone in your organization spearheading your cybersecurity initiatives? If not, it’s time to name a chief information security officer (CISO), or outsource the role to a qualified firm, like ours. Every team needs a quarterback who can leverage every security weapon available.
The next step is making sure that you have a (written) plan. That means developing the following resources:
- An Incident Response Plan
- A Disaster Recovery plan
- An Acceptable Use Policy
- A Security Policy
Other policies may be selected depending on which framework you select to follow, but these four are key under all frameworks.
Your Incident Response Policy defines what a security incident is, and what actions are to be taken. Arguably the most important, this policy will be your action plan when a breach occurs, or when anything representing defined risk to your business needs attention.
Your disaster recovery and business continuity plans help to establish clear-cut operations should the unthinkable happen, such as a breach of customer data. The recovery plan delineates how your company will get back to square one. The continuity plan gives direction to help your company stay productive and solvent as it deals with the crisis.
Your company’s acceptable use policy dictates who has access to what digital assets. Will you implement a zero-trust framework? Two-factor authentication? Acceptable use makes security protocols clear on both a day-to-day basis and during emergency situations.
In order to establish these kinds of plans, captive insurance companies should continually run updated risk assessments. Risk assessments are designed to help you identify weak points in your company’s overall IT so that you can patch them proactively before bad actors worm their way into your data pool.
With leadership defined, risk assessment firmly in hand, and a backup plan should things go awry, the final step is to allocate your budget appropriately. If we have stressed any one point in particular, it’s that in this day and age, digital encroachments aren’t an “if” scenario, but rather “when?” Budget allocation is a matter of earmarking funds for a robust and powerful set of cybersecurity tools, as well as capital funding for a potential cybersecurity policy.
Enhanced Cybersecurity for Captive Insurance
When it comes to cybersecurity, you don’t have to go it alone. It is often more time and cost-effective to outsource your cybersecurity to a third party. The benefits of doing so include:
- Decreased costs
- Niche security expertise
- Access to cutting-edge tech and software
- Round-the-clock monitoring
- Faster implementation
- Peace of mind
Rose Computer Technology Services has provided IT support to Vermont’s captive insurance industry for over 20 years and counting. We employ a bespoke approach to cybersecurity that starts with analyzing your risk, identifying critical gaps in data, tech, and knowledge, and then working on a risk mitigation plan from there. We bring an entire tool box of hardware and software solutions to the table.
Vermont is home to the Captive Insurance Trade Organization. As such, it bears the industry’s gold standard. Rose Computers knows captive insurance, including the inherent IT risks involved with the industry. We can help make your interactions with auditors easier by employing state-of-the-art knowledge and programs centered around cybersecurity. Please contact Rose CTS to schedule your own consultation today.