Did you know that the second your clients data is stolen, you are legally responsible for the notification of the breach to all of your clients? The legal fees for that alone may be too much for some small business owners. You are also responsible for all credit monitoring costs those clients would need in order to monitor if the data is being used illegally. These are the costs your business will incur even before your clients suffer any financial loss due to the data theft.
When you hear terms like “data breach”, “computer fraud” and “cyber extortion” you are probably thinking that those are terms for big companies who deal with large servers and need to have security measures in place, but that is not the case. Most cyber crimes against companies are committed against smaller companies who have less security in place.
Regardless of whether you are a general contractor, a property manager, a website designer, an employment agency, a dog walker, etc., etc., chances are you have some form of client information stored electronically.
Ask yourself one question, if your laptop, iPad or cellphone was stolen or spam was installed by a hacker, would your clients’ information be at risk? If you answered yes, your business should have cyber liability insurance.
Here is a great video by Travelers Insurance on the importance of Cyber Liability Insurance.