Cyber for Plan Sponsors

Small Plan Sponsors More Vulnerable to Data Breach Than Big Companies

05.30.2019

You’ve probably heard a lot about data breaches at Equifax and Sony, but did you know that small businesses, including individual plan sponsors, are more vulnerable to cyber attack and data breach than those large companies?

Small businesses and plan sponsors can be more prone to hacks and attacks just because they can’t afford the same magnitude of cybersecurity measures that large companies can. Those companies can afford to have large teams specifically employed to prevent cyber attacks. Click here to learn more.

Plan sponsors have to find different and more affordable ways to prevent against cyber attack and mitigate any damages should a data breach occur.

So how can plan sponsors protect themselves against a data breach and gain their own breach response team? cyber liability insurance!

Colonial Surety includes cyber liability insurance with our ERISA fidelity bond packages with fiduciary liability insurance to best protect your company plan against a cyber attack.

Under ERISA, fiduciaries may be held personally liable for a breach of their responsibilities in the administration or handling of employee benefit plans. Under ERISA 410, the plan cannot relieve you of this responsibility with indemnification language, however, it specifically permits persons with personal liability to purchase fiduciary liability insurance. Covering yourself with fiduciary liability insurance gives you a piece of mind that you are protected.

Colonial’s cyber insurance provides a services-based solution to help plan sponsors manage data breaches successfully. These services include a dedicated team of cyber breach professionals who assist plan sponsors at every stage of incident investigation and breach response. These professionals coordinate the carefully vetted forensics experts and specialized lawyers to help plan sponsors establish what’s been compromised; assess plan sponsor responsibility; and, notify those individuals affected. In addition, these services will also coordinate credit or identity monitoring, and PR advice to help the plan sponsor safeguard its reputation. Of course, Colonial’s cyber insurance also indemnifies and defends plan sponsors from covered lawsuits or regulatory actions, the risk of which may be reduced by a well-coordinated breach response, but can never be completely eliminated.

Ongoing governance and evaluation of recordkeepers can help protect data, but the only way to fully protect against a potential cyber attack’s data breach is to purchase cyber liability insurance from Colonial Surety Company.