Cleaning up after a cyberattack takes a toll. Valerie McDonald, senior vice president, MPL product manager at AXIS PRO, explains how cyber coverage can keep your association from scrambling to cover the costs.

What is cyber coverage?

Cyber or privacy policies cover an organization’s liability and certain internal costs resulting from a data breach in which members’ personal information is exposed or stolen. The cost of responding to a breach includes legal and forensic services, notifying individuals whose information has been compromised, providing credit and identity monitoring and restoration services, and public relations expenses—all of which could be covered by a cyber policy.

Why should associations be looking into cyber coverage?

Organizations that collect sensitive or confidential data have a duty to protect it from unauthorized use or access. Accordingly, nearly every association is at high risk of a data breach that could result from hacking events, the accidental release or theft of data, or the physical loss of laptops or mobile devices storing sensitive data.

What types of coverage plans work best for associations?

Selecting the right policy for your organization is a complex exercise. Depending on the services provided by the association, it should include some or all of these coverages:

Crisis management coverage for expenses related to incident management, the investigation, the remediation, data subject notification, call management, credit checking for data subjects, legal costs, court attendance, and regulatory fines.

Extortion liability coverage for losses due to a threat of extortion and professional fees related to dealing with the extortion.

Network security liability coverage for third-party damages as a result of a hacker denying owners access to their website, costs related to data of third-party suppliers, and expenses related to the theft of data on third-party systems.

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