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Monthly Archives: July 2015

Special Event Insurance

Hosting events such as concerts, festivals, conferences, trade shows, sporting events and celebrations subjects a business to a variety of liabilities and business risks that must be considered to avoid costly litigation or other losses when something goes amiss. Appropriate coverages for events include Property Insurance, General Liability Insurance, Employer’s Liability Insurance and Cancellation Insurance.

Property Insurance

A Property Insurance policy protects equipment at events ranging from sophisticated audio-visual systems to folding chairs, whether they are owned, borrowed or hired for the event. The policy generally covers property while in transit to and from the event as well as during the event. Damaged, destroyed or lost property is reinstated on a “new-for-old” basis, meaning that it is generally not appropriate for things like antiques, collectibles or other irreplaceable property.

Special Event General Liability Insurance

A Special Event General Liability Insurance policy provides broad protection for situations in which an event holder or concessionaire must defend itself against lawsuits or pay damages for bodily injury or property damage to third parties. When alcohol is served without a transfer of money, the policy can also include host Events & Liquor Liability. Limits and premiums vary greatly depending on the type of event and location.

  • An Additional Insured endorsement to the policy provides protection to the venue and sponsors of the event. Commonly, facilities and venues require that all parties using the site name them as an Additional Insured on a General Liability policy. In fact, the wording of the required Additional Insured endorsement is often included in the Insurance Requirement section of the Facility Use Agreement signed with the venue.
  • A Third-Party Property Damage Liability policy pays for damage, destruction or loss of property belonging to others while it is in the care, custody or control of the policyholder.
  • Contractual Liability is a legal obligation voluntarily assumed under the terms of a contract, as distinguished from liability imposed by the law (legal liability).
  • Automobile Liability coverage pays for damages resulting from the ownership, maintenance or use of a covered auto are covered by an Automobile Liability policy. This liability arises whenever you or one of your employees leases, hires, rents or borrows a vehicle for business reasons. If you do not normally use vehicles for business reasons but will be using one for an event, consider this type of coverage.
  • Events & Liquor Liability coverage is necessary if you are charging for alcoholic beverages at an event or if a liquor licence is required to distribute them. You may be held liable during the course of an event by reason of:

o             Causing or contributing to the intoxication of a person

o             Furnishing alcoholic beverages to a person under legal drinking age or under the influence of alcohol

o             Violating any statute, ordinance or regulation relating to the sale, gift distribution or use of alcoholic beverages.

Employer’s Liability Insurance, protects your business against lawsuits due to employment-related injuries or illnesses attributed to alleged employer negligence.

Cancellation Insurance

Similar to Business Interruption Insurance in other industries, cancellation policies are essential to preventing serious financial consequences in case of the event’s cancellation. These policies can be useful even when the event is not entirely cancelled – expenditures due to unforeseen circumstances (such as alternate forms of transportation to the event during inclement weather) are generally covered as well. The policy generally covers all perils that are beyond the control of the event’s host, including inclement weather, a speaker dropping out, strikes or disease outbreak. In some cases, the same policy can cover multiple events.

Policies are less expensive if they are purchased well in advance, and the cost of premiums depends on the time of year, the type of event and the level of environmental risk in the surrounding geographic area.

 

© Zywave, Inc. All rights reserved.

 

 


Cyber Liability: Protect Your Email

Spam EmailEmail is a critical part of everyday business, from internal management to direct customer support. The benefits associated with email as a primary business tool far outweigh the negatives. However, businesses must be mindful that a successful email platform starts with basic principles of email security to ensure the privacy and protection of customer and business information.

Set up a spam email filter.

It has been-well documented that spam, phishing attempts, and otherwise unsolicited and unwelcome email accounts for more than 60 per cent of all email that an individual or business receives. Email is the primary method for spreading viruses and malware. Consider using email-filtering services that your email service, hosting provider or other cloud providers offer. A local email filter application is also an important component of a solid anti-virus strategy. Ensure that automatic updates are enabled on your email application, email filter and anti-virus programs. Additionally, ensure that filters are reviewed regularly so that important email and/or domains are not blocked in error.

Protect sensitive information sent via email.

With its proliferation as a primary tool to communicate internally and externally, business email often includes sensitive information. Whether it is company information that could harm your business or regulated data such as personal health information (PHI) or personally identifiable information (PII), it is important to ensure that such information is only sent and accessed by those who are entitled to see it.

Email is not designed to be secure, so incidents of misaddressing or other common accidental forwarding can lead to data leakage. If your business handles this type of information, you should consider whether such information should be sent via email, or at least consider using email encryption. Encryption is the process of converting data into unreadable format to prevent disclosure to unauthorized personnel. Only individuals or organizations with access to the encryption key can read the information. Other cloud services offer secure Web-enabled drop boxes that allow secure data transfer for sensitive information, which is often a better approach to transmission between companies or customers.

Implement a sensible email retention policy.

It’s important to manage the email that resides on your company messaging systems and your users’ computers. You should document how you will handle email retention, and you should also implement basic controls to ensure information is retained for the necessary period. Many industries have specific rules that dictate how long emails can or should be retained, but the basic rule of thumb is only as long as it supports your business efforts. Many companies implement a 60- to 90-day retention standard if not compelled by law to use another retention period.

To ensure compliance, consider mandatory archiving at a chosen retention cycle end date and automatic, permanent email removal after another set point, such as 180 to 360 days in archives. In addition, discourage the use of personal folders on employee computers (most often configurable from the email system level), as this will make it more difficult to manage company standards.

Develop an email usage policy.

Policies are important for setting expectations for your employees or users, and for developing standards to ensure adherence to your published polices.

Your policies should be easy to read, understand, define and enforce. Key areas to address include what the company email system should and should not be used for, and what data is allowed to be transmitted. Other policy areas should address retention, privacy and acceptable use.

Depending on your business and jurisdiction, you may have a need for email monitoring. The rights of the business and the user should be documented in the policy. The policy should be part of your general end user awareness training and reviewed for updates on a yearly basis.

Train your employees in responsible email usage.

The last line of defence for all of your cyber risk efforts lies with the employees who use email and their responsible and appropriate use and management of the information under their control. Technology alone cannot make a business secure. Employees must be trained to identify risks associated with email use, how and when to use email appropriate to their work and when to seek professional assistance. Employee awareness training is available in many forms, including printed media, videos and online training.

Consider requiring security awareness training for all new employees and offering refresher courses every year. You can provide monthly newsletters, urgent bulletins when new viruses are detected and even posters in common areas to remind your employees of key security and privacy do’s and don’ts.

 

© Zywave, Inc. All rights reserved.


Protecting Yourself from Ransomware

Cyber hackerCyber security experts recently warned that ransomware attacks may be on the rise. This type of malware actually encrypts your data and then requires you to pay a fee in order to access it. With ransom sums often amounting to thousands of dollars, consider taking these simple steps to protect yourself from ransomware:

  • Use trustworthy anti-virus software and make sure it is up to date.
  • Enable automated updates of your operating system and browser.
  • Only download software from trusted sites.
  • Never open attachments in unsolicited emails, even if they come from people in your contacts.
  • Never click on a link in an unsolicited email.
  • Make sure to back up your data regularly and store it offline.

Preventive measures are important, but they can’t account for everything.  It is important to go over your policy and look for any gaps in your coverage.

 

© 2015 Zywave, Inc. All rights reserved.


Is a BYOD Policy Right for Your Company?

Executive with laptopMore and more employees—especially the young and technologically savvy—are no longer satisfied with company-issued tools to get the job done. Known as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), businesses are finding that employees want to swap company equipment in favor of personally owned devices, such as laptops, tablets or smartphones that they are more comfortable using.

BYOD can be a money-saver for companies, reducing the amount spent on hardware and software purchases, maintenance and the cost of training employees to use the equipment. Especially for rapidly expanding companies, allowing personally owned devices could save thousands of dollars in upfront IT hardware costs for new employees. With BYOD, employees buy and maintain their own equipment. Companies can choose to compensate them by subsidizing or reimbursing their purchases, or offering flexible work schedules and the ability to work remotely.

In addition to saving money, BYOD can be effective for recruiting and retaining staff. With the freedom to choose the technology they are more comfortable working with, employees are more productive and satisfied with their jobs.

While BYOD saves some companies money, others could end up spending a lot more. Businesses that require the standardization of their applications, hardware and operating systems—meaning that some equipment must be integrated with others—could actually increase IT management costs if personally owned devices were added to the mix.

Adopting BYOD can expose companies to two major risks: IT security risks and data loss. This alone may be enough to compel a company to ban BYOD altogether. If you are considering adopting a BYOD policy, you should ask yourself whether the benefits are worth the risks. If your answer is yes, then employ risk management to mitigate those risks.

 

© 2015 Zywave, Inc.


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