Hartford Offers Enhanced Cyber Liability Coverage

According to a Hartford news release, CyberChoice 2.09, offers broader coverage for data privacy breaches and social media liability exposures, such as online defamation, advertising, libel and slander, by employees or casual users of a company’s Web site.

CyberChoice 2.09 also defines the term “rogue employee” and provides coverage for such employee’s misuse of technology

“We’re seeing widespread adoption of social media technologies among businesses in virtually every industry. At the same time, data is becoming increasingly regulated, which is creating new exposures, particularly in the areas of data privacy and reputational risk,” said Drew Bartkiewicz, vice president of cyber and new media risk at The Hartford, in the news release. “Whether an employee’s act is intentional or negligent, the viral nature of the Internet means that errors leading to data breaches, defamation of a competitor or the improper use of intellectual property can quickly become very costly to repair,” said Bartkiewicz.

Coverage options include:

Data Privacy—with a broader definition that offers protection for data breaches by the company or third parties—such as vendors doing work on behalf of the company—involving the loss of personally identifiable information or company confidential information;

E-media and Internet Liability—addresses online defamation, advertising, libel, and slander-related exposures as well as emerging liabilities created by casual users of a company’s Web site;

Network Security—for failure of security measures to prevent a denial of service, unauthorized access, theft of electronic data, inadvertent transmission of a virus or other malicious code;

Infringement of Intellectual Property Rights—for copyright or trademark liability as it relates to online text, videos, images, blogs and advertising;

Professional Services—for ancillary errors and omissions, negligent acts performed for others for a fee;

Network Business Interruption—which replaces loss of income due to a covered network outage or loss;

Cyber Investigation Expense—for unbudgeted extra expense incurred to investigate a data privacy or network security wrongful act;

Cyber Extortion—for expenses incurred in the event of an extortion threat to cause a data privacy or network security wrongful act.