Advisen Ltd.: September 2015

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Higher and Higher: Cyber Insurance Towers Take Careful Construction

Much like the physical construction of a skyscraper, building a cyber insurance tower requires a strong foundation, careful planning of each layer, plenty of ventilation, and a healthy dose of innovation to meet the needs of all insureds and insurers involved on an account.

With cyber events occurring with regularity in nearly every industry, no insurer wants to be the sole company on the hook for a claim. Crafting an insurance tower means as many as 45 to 50 insurers can handle a portion of the hundreds of millions in coverage large multinational corporations seek nowadays.

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

7 Cyber Risk Stakeholders and Why They Matter

Imagine you’re the CFO at a firm involved in sensitive M&A discussions with your bankers and you receive an email asking for a small bit of non-public information on your company, the kind you’ve passed on before. You send the information—and later find you were the victim of a sophisticated cyber-attack.

Now imagine you’re in charge of operations at a manufacturing facility. Out of the blue, your employees report that they have lost control of key systems. It’s impossible to shut down a blast furnace correctly, endangering the safety of employees and others and threatening massive damage. You, too, have been the subject of a cyber-attack.

These events underscore the new reality in cyber risk management: It is no longer just an IT issue. Everyone—from individual employees to risk managers to your board of directors—now has a stake in managing cyber risk comprehensively, across the enterprise.

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Mid-market, HNW join Fortune 1000 in purchasing KRE insurance in increasingly global world

Several years ago the demand for Kidnap, Ransom and Extortion (KRE) insurance was driven by increases in reported kidnappings, with many more going reported.

Today, kidnappings remain a large concern and still many—as many as 80 percent—go unreported but demand for KRE products may result more from globalization than headline-grabbing incidents.

Monday, September 21, 2015

Female farmworkers in Fla. win $17M in harassment suit

A federal jury in Miami returned a unanimous verdict awarding a total of $17,425,000 to five former female employees of Moreno Farms Inc., a produce growing and packing operation in Felda, Fla., who suffered sexual harassment and retaliation, the EEOC said.

Two sons of the owner of Moreno Farms and a third male supervisor engaged in graphic acts of sexual harassment against female workers in Moreno Farms’ packaging house, including regular groping and propositioning, threatening female employees with termination if they refused the supervisors’ sexual advances, and attempting to rape, and raping, multiple female employees, according to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Variable Pay Hits Record as Companies Weigh Risk Against Optimism

Companies are spending the most ever on variable pay for salaried exempt workers, according to Aon Hewitt, as optimism about the economy is tempered by a greater emphasis on risk management.

Funds allocated for incentives, bonuses and cash awards climbed to a non-inflation-adjusted 12.9 percent of payroll spending in 2015, the highest in the 39 years of the US salary increase survey.

Thursday, September 10, 2015

Cyber Espionage Takes Center Stage for Foreign Relations

Cybercrime continues to increase, plaguing businesses, governments, and citizens, but one form of attack – cyber espionage — threatens intellectual competitiveness and economic and military security while potentially going unnoticed and with few cyber insurance options in the marketplace.

This week, reports indicated that the White House may implement sanctions against China over the stealing of state secrets and private sector business research and development. The move would be the first to formally employ an executive order issued by Pres. Barack Obama last spring, and it follows the massive data breach at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that experts have speculated allowed nation-states to tap into the personally identifiable information of government intelligence agents.

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

NLRB Redefines Joint-Employer Status, Potentially Extending Liabilities

The National Labor Relations Board has restored an earlier, more expansive definition of what it means to be a joint employer in a decision with ramifications for franchisers such as McDonald’s and companies that use staffing agencies, independent contractors and other non-traditional work arrangements.

The 3-2 decision on Aug. 27 involving Browning-Ferris Industries of California could make the companies more liable for wage and hour and other employment practices liabilities.

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Gender Diversity on Boards Grows Organically If Slowly in US

While countries like Germany legislate against all-male company boards, the US chips away at the status quo without government quotas or targets.

“It’s easy to say, put a woman on the board,” said Charlotte Laurent-Ottomane, executive director of Thirty Percent Coalition and former executive vice president at Alcatel-Lucent. “We want a qualified woman.”