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Managing risks for businesses servicing the catering and hospitality industry

There are numerous risks that can affect businesses in the food service, catering and hospitality industry. Traditional risks and insurance cover will always need consideration

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There are numerous risks that can affect businesses in the food service, catering and hospitality industry. Traditional risks and insurance cover will always need consideration, such as:

  • Commercial Combined policy
  • Employers’ Liability
  • Public Liability
  • Products Liability
  • Fleet Insurance
  • Credit Insurance
  • Professional Indemnity
  • Marine Cargo
  • Engineering inspection
  • Group Travel Insurance

Current risks affecting the industry 

In our experience, technological developments in the industry have meant that the risk of cyber-attacks have received renewed interest.

Cyber

Cyber insurance (also referred to as cyber risk or cyber liability insurance) is a form of cover designed to protect your business from threats in the digital age, such as data breaches or malicious cyber hacks on work computer systems. 

Let’s look at a claims example:

Hackers gained unauthorised access to account information located on a network due to an unknown vulnerability. The account information included names, email addresses, national ID numbers, and the financial account information of 20,000 contacts. After multiple people reported suspicious activity on their email, IT discovered that an unauthorised user was in the system. The insured telephoned their insurer hotline.

Potential impact

  • Privacy liability – mismanagement of personal and/or corporate confidential information
    • Defence expenses arising from regulator investigation due to irresponsible management of private information
    • Defence and settlement costs for claims from individuals that had their identity stolen
  • Network security liability – failure to effectively protect insured’s network from malware, hacking, denial of service attacks or unauthorised use or access
  • Incident response expenses
    • Forensic investigation costs to locate vulnerability, analyse impact, ensure containment, and calculate extent of loss
    • Notification to affected individuals
    • Identity theft monitoring services to affected individuals
    • Costs to set up and operate a call centre for enquiries
    • Public relations expert fees to minimise reputational impact of the incident - legal consultation fees
    • Incident response manager fees

Takeaway

This scenario highlights the importance of storing sensitive information under the necessary protections. Up to date firewalls, intrusion detection software, and encryption of databases are just a few ways to responsibly maintain the privacy of employee and customer information. This example also highlights the many ways a cyber-policy may respond to cyber events.

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