Zurich North America Commercial announced today its enhanced and expanded product to help businesses manage the financial and reputational risks of cyberspace – the Zurich Security and Privacy Protection Policy.

The consequence of data breaches cost today’s business owners an average of $6.6 million per incident, and this cost is on the rise¹, according to a study conducted by an independent research institute. Zurich’s policy is designed to help pay for the costs incurred while trying to recover from a data breach and to help companies protect against the potential liabilities arising out of or resulting from cyber-related incidents. In addition to data breaches, the policy provides coverage for a broad range of network security and privacy risks, such as unauthorized access or use of an insured’s computer system, alteration or destruction of electronic data and denial of service attacks. The policy provides both third party insurance including optional internet media liability and optional first party coverages.

According to Brad Gow, senior vice president of Specialty Errors & Omissions for Zurich North America Commercial’s Specialties business unit, the current regulatory environment is creating an escalating exposure for companies, with more stringent reporting requirements as well as media notification in numerous jurisdictions. At present, more than 40 states, the District of Columbia and numerous foreign jurisdictions have data breach reporting regulations with new legislation being developed continually.

“Zurich’s coverage is expansive and designed to help protect business owners from the vulnerabilities of business’ digital infrastructure,” said Gow. “Most of the technologies making today’s workforce more efficient, including smartphones, laptops, and external hard drives, are also making it easier than ever for data breaches to occur. The fact is, the vulnerability of business owners doesn’t only spring from hackers or cyber attacks. A vendor or an unhappy employee can walk off with millions of records on a USB stick.”

Zurich Security and Privacy Protection coverage provides a broad range of critical third party and first party insurance coverage. This policy was designed to help reduce the confusion that can result from dealing with multiple policies helping to close the gaps in coverage existing today.

• Third party coverage:
  
  • Security and privacy liability coverage, which includes limited coverage for regulatory proceedings defense costs
    
  • Internet media liability coverage (available as an option)
    
• Privacy breach costs coverage (available as an option):
  
  • Covers certain legal and public relations expenses and forensic investigation expenses of a company’s computer system to determine the cause or extent of a privacy breach
    
• First party coverage:
  
  • Business income loss and dependent business income loss
    
  • Digital asset replacement expense
    
  • Cyber extortion threat and reward payments
    

“Zurich brings the knowledge and experience to this field to identify, understand and manage the risks facing our customers,” said Seraina Maag, president of Zurich North America Commercial’s Specialties business unit. “We continually evaluate loss trends and the current risk environment to identify the most common vulnerabilities that cause the greatest losses. Zurich’s security and privacy product is designed to help our customers recover quickly the greatest financial losses from the risks inherent in our Internet-dependent economy.” Zurich’s new policy is available to all major industries and offers specialized protection for the particular vulnerabilities faced by financial enterprises, healthcare industries, which need to comply with key regulations such as the recently enacted HITECH Act, and technology firms.

As an additional level of support, Zurich customers will gain access for no additional charge to NetDiligence’s eRisk hub, a Web-based resource for cyber incident prevention and recovery service information. Zurich Security and Privacy Protection customers will also be offered access to additional prevention and recovery resources, such as these current offerings:

• Deloitte’s Digital Forensic and e-Discovery,
• National ID Recovery, and
• Identity Theft 911’s Security Breach Response.

“Combining state-of-the-art coverage with loss control and prevention recommendations provided by independent third parties demonstrates Zurich’s commitment to assisting our customers in all phases of their risk management from risk awareness to mitigation to risk transfer,” said Ty R. Sagalow, chief innovation officer for Zurich North America Commercial.

For more information, go to http://www.zurichna.com/securityandprivacy.

About Zurich

Zurich’s North America Commercial and Global Corporate in North America business divisions are part of Zurich Financial Services Group (Zurich), an insurance-based financial services provider with a global network of subsidiaries and offices in North America and Europe as well as in Asia Pacific, Latin America and other markets. Founded in 1872, the Group is headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. It employs approximately 60,000 people serving customers in more than 170 countries. In North America, Zurich (www.zurichna.com) is a leading commercial property-casualty insurance provider serving the global corporate, large corporate, middle market, specialties and programs sectors.

This is intended as a general description of certain types of insurance and services available to qualified customers through the companies of Zurich in North America. Your policy is the contract that specifically and fully describes your coverage. The description of the policy provisions gives a broad overview of coverages and does not revise or amend the policy. Insurance coverages underwritten by member companies of Zurich in North America, including Zurich American Insurance Company. Certain coverages not available in all states. Some coverages may be written on a nonadmitted basis through licensed surplus lines brokers. Risk engineering services are provided by Zurich Services Corporation.

¹ Ponemon, Dr. Larry., “Fourth Annual US Cost of Data Breach Study” Ponemon Institute (January 2009), http://www.ponemon.org/local/upload/fckjail/generalcontent/18/file/2008-2009%20US%20Cost%20of%20Data%20Breach%20Report%20Final.pdf