The Hartford Launches New Cyber Liability Insurance Product

To address the growing concern around threats now associated with the functionalities of Web 2.0, Hartford Financial Products, an underwriting unit of The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. has developed a liability product called CyberChoice 2.0, which provides businesses with a robust, technology-related insurance policy that goes beyond traditional business insurance.

CyberChoice 2.0 includes both errors and omissions and first-party coverage designed to help meet the needs of today’s traditional companies that recognize their technology exposure and information risks. Companies and/or organizations with personally identifiable information (PII) include:
 

“Cyber risk is an unavoidable, but very real, part of the internet economy that has created new liabilities and business exposures,” says Drew Bartkiewicz, vice president of Cyber and New Media Risk at The Hartford, Hartford, Conn. “As Web 2.0 is becoming more mainstream, so are the business risks of privacy, media, and online advertising. This is especially an issue as companies experiment with initiatives where the users create the potential new media liabilities associated with websites, including social networking sites. This is the most dynamic area of the economy, and the most legally uncertain in terms of doing business.”

Key features of The Hartford’s new CyberChoice 2.0 product include:
* Third-party coverage for data privacy and network security liability; Internet and electronic media liability; and professional services liability.
* First-party business interruption coverage in the event of a network security breach.
* First-party cyber extortion coverage for threats against data and identity theft.
* Intellectual property coverage for advertising and technology products.
* Reimbursement for expenses related to responding to a major privacy event. Some examples include notification of affected parties, costs for managing the crisis, data privacy regulatory fines, cost associated with credit monitoring, and investigation of the event by outside experts.
* Up to $10 million in coverage limits are available.

“In the last decade alone, personal data has become a valued company asset for businesses in the and abroad,” says Bartkiewicz. “With companies doubling their data volume every year and new regulations on the horizon, experts predict that the problem of data risk will continue to threaten businesses – and that the likelihood that a company and/or organization will experience a data breach will increase exponentially. We hope that the release of The Hartford’s new CyberChoice 2.0 product will help better protect companies against the many threats now part of our online world today.”

CyberChoice 2.0 is available via The Hartford Financial Products unit. Coverage is underwritten through the property and casualty insurance companies of The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc., and may not be available in all states.