National Underwriter - January 16, 2012

and otherwise, buying a dedicated cyber-
risk policy? “I’m not sure we’re seeing
this yet translate into significant activity
toward the product,” observes Tim Francis,
enterprise cyber-insurance lead for Travelers
Insurance, which began offering a dedicated
cyber policy for non-technology businesses
last summer. “But many companies were
looking at the product even before the SEC
guidelines came out.”
Philadelphia Insurance says it has seen
“pretty substantial growth” in the number
of companies shopping since it began
offering its own dedicated Cyber Liability
product in 2010, says Tom Herendeen,
vice president of management and
professional liability.

A big reason why companies are
looking, Herendeen and others agree, is
that the cost of handling a data breach
continues to rise: an average of $214 per
record in 2010, up 5 percent from the year
before, according to a study conducted
by the Ponemon Institute. The bulk of
this per-record cost comes from expenses
associated with notifying customers of
breaches and in providing follow-up
services such as credit monitoring.

BY JAMES MURDOCK

LAYING OFF full-time journalists in favor of relying on freelancers and syn- dicated content providers has become an increasingly common strategy for media companies seeking to maintain their profits.

Nearly 16,000 layoffs and buyouts at newspapers occurred in 2008, for instance, according to the “Paper Cuts” blog, which tracks job losses at newspapers, and nearly 3,800 were let go or bought out in 2011.

Many of these laid-off reporters— accustomed to being covered for libel, slander and other standard claims by media-insurance policies at their large organizations—became freelancers and lost the protection of those policies.

While some carriers will issue media
policies directly to individuals, the cost can
be prohibitive. So most savvy journalists-
for-hire will try to make sure they are
covered by the company paying for their
services—which also has the deeper
pockets and is more likely to be targeted
in a lawsuit that arises from a third-party
provider’s work being called into question.

Chubb: Copyright & Licensing Claims Rising Against Media Companies Ken Goldstein, vice president and worldwide media liability manager for the Chubb Group of Companies, has seen an increasing number of claims in which publishers and broadcasters are alleged to have violated copyright and licensing agreements that limit the number of times a work may be used. The problems often arise when agreements restrict the number of uses to only specific Web sites, and a media company uses it on other online properties it owns.