Daily Market Update

Lawyer highlights the legal risks of cyber attack… California county calls for more action on wildfires… China acknowledges insurance industry’s benefits to the economy…

Insurance News

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The legal risks of cyber attack
For a business suffering a cyber attack the first thoughts will be operational; can we continue to function? Is our website useable? Is our data corrupted? Continuing to operate and ensuring that customers are aware of any data breach are paramount. Once these immediate issues have been addressed concern shifts to damage to reputation and the potential of legal action from those who may have been compromised by an attack on your network. David Gerber, a partner at law firm Clayton Utz, has worked in the insurance industry and has valuable insight from both the legal and insurance professions. Writing on the law firm’s blog, Gerber points out that damage to reputation could take time and money to fix. A PR campaign may be needed; customers may need to be offered monitoring of their credit lines or even compensation. Then there is the potential for regulators imposing penalties including hefty fines. Privacy laws are frequently being updated and businesses should be aware of their obligations in keeping data secure. Care should be taken where data is stored overseas; if using a foreign webhost, are they in a jurisdiction that has similar strict data protection as yours?

County calls for more federal action on wildfires
With almost 2000 people evacuated from their homes in California this week due to a spate of wildfires, the county of Sierra is calling for federal action to help prevent them from happening. The small county on the border of Nevada has declared a state of emergency and says that the federal government needs to tackle overgrown forests. Officials say that budget cuts mean that plans to thin timber and vegetation have not been implemented but urgent action and funding is required. Read the full story.

China values its insurance industry
The world’s second largest economy has been slow in penetration of insurance but that’s changing fast. With a growing middle class, the desire for insurance products is increasing and yesterday a senior regulator recognised the industry’s importance to the economy. Wang Zuji, vice chairman of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission told a news conference that the industry has played its part in investing in infrastructure and boosting economic growth to the tune of $585 billion. Newly announced rules on where and how insurers can invest are seen as having potential for the industry which is on an upward trend; in the first half of this year total revenue from premiums increased by over 20 per cent from a year earlier. Read the full story.
 

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