July 24, 2017
Property & Casualty

Run-off Insurance A Necessity in Today's Market

Today’s merger and acquisition (M&A) landscape is hyper active. In 2016 alone, there were more than 12,000 M&A deals in the U.S. These opportunities often create significant financial opportunity for the purchasing and selling entities. Alternatively, during the same period corporate bankruptcies totaled over 46,000, revealing that many companies are facing significant difficulties.

Both M&A events and bankruptcies typically lead to significant changes in a company’s corporate structure, which in turn impacts the exposures faced by its directors and officers (D&O), and their respective insurers. So, how does a D&O policy respond to changes in the structure of a business? When should management consider run-off insurance for ongoing protection?  

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July 20, 2017
Property & Casualty

OSHA Electronic Reporting Delay

The OSHA electronic reporting rule requires certain establishments to report information electronically from their OSHA Forms 300, 300A and 301. The rule also requires OSHA to create a website that can be used to submit the required information. Under the rule, the first reports were due by July 1, 2017. 

However, on a recent update to its recordkeeping webpage, OSHA indicated that the Injury Tracking Application (ITA) website will not be ready to receive electronic workplace injury and illness reports until Aug. 1, 2017, and has proposed Dec. 1, 2017, as the new deadline.  

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Cyber Risk Prevention
June 15, 2017
Property & Casualty

Cyber Risk: What Is Your Company Doing About It?

Businesses of every size and in nearly every industry are facing increasing cyber risk. Cyber threats that seemed far-fetched for many companies only a few years ago are very real today – as evidenced by the recent WannaCry ransomware attack that spread to over 150 countries last month. Results from the 2017 Cyber Risk Survey indicate that many businesses are not adequately protected and lack the knowledge and resources to prepare for, or respond to, a cyber-related incident.  

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Photo of graphs showing insurance trends.
May 19, 2017
Property & Casualty

Property & Casualty Market Outlook 2017

Property and Casualty (P&C) insurance tends to be one of the most important items that businesses review on an annual basis. At Scott, our clients often ask us to predict how their insurance costs will change each year. While no two businesses are exactly alike and many factors go into the pricing of insurance policies, we can make a number of predictions based on the current state of the insurance market.  

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Cyber Risk Prevention
April 27, 2017
Property & Casualty

Protect Your Business from Cyber Extortion

When a technology company was hit by a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack by a hacker who had gained control of one of its critical control panels, it was asked to be paid in exchange for returning control to its operations. The company chose not to comply with the extortionists and instead worked to recover its account by changing passwords. Unfortunately, the hackers had created backup logins to the panel and started randomly deleting files once they saw the company’s actions. This example of cyber extortion, unfortunately, put the company out of business.

Extortion as a result of a cyber attack is becoming more and more common for all business types and sizes. One reason for the increase in incidents is that end-user software like Cryptolocker has commoditized the malware industry, making it accessible to a wider variety of criminals and less-skilled hackers.

Cyber criminals, for the purposes of extortion, can threaten to shut down computer systems or erase data, infect a company with a virus, publish private information or personally identifiable information on customers or employees, institute a denial-of-service attack or take over social media accounts. 

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