The Importance of Cyber Risk Insurance for Dentists
Even the most comprehensive data protection strategy can collapse under the pressure of a ferocious cyberattack. Cyber liability insurance ensures the aftermath doesn’t spell the end for your dental office. Liability insurance is essential to effective risk management and goes a long way to protecting your longevity as a practice. The fallout of a calculated cyberattack can strain your finances and leave you with slim chances of recovery.
Keep reading to learn more about dental cybersecurity and how you can implement cyber risk insurance for dentists.
How Does Cyber Liability Insurance Promote Dental Cybersecurity?
Cyber insurance is a financial safety net that protects you from the potentially disastrous costs of a cyberattack. Notifying your employees and clients and repairing compromised software following an attack is incredibly expensive. When you consider the possibility of clients suing you for damages, the results can be catastrophic. The financial repercussions of a comprehensive data breach could send your organization under.
Few small businesses have the time and resources to build a full-fledged IT department. Interviewing, onboarding, training, and supporting an entire team of experts is no small assignment. Often, it’s easier to hire a team member or two and hope they’re enough to keep your data secure. Unfortunately, that’s rarely enough.
Any business with patient records or confidential financial information stored on a computer network is vulnerable to a data breach. Whereas a large corporation can afford to spend money to settle a cyber lawsuit and patch up its cybersecurity, smaller businesses have fewer options. Purchasing cyber liability coverage is the best way to ensure you don’t end up bankrupt after paying suit costs.
What Does Cyber Liability Insurance Cover?
All a dental office needs to attract a malicious user is a vulnerable computer network and an internet connection. Similarly, all a practice needs to reinforce its practice management strategies are formidable cybersecurity tools and comprehensive cyber liability coverage.
A proper dental cybersecurity strategy offers guidance and relief after an attack. After you experience a data breach, you need to pause operations to assess patient data, verify the integrity of sensitive information, notify staff and clients, and ensure your cash flow isn’t heavily impacted. Cyber liability insurance covers many scenarios during and after a cyberattack.
Your policy can fund a public relations firm to handle damage control for your company and cover credit monitoring costs for patients whose personal information was compromised. If a lawsuit crops up, all defense costs are covered, and if your patient data is ransomed, policies like ransomware insurance address the expenses.
Cyber risk insurance covers costs associated with:
- Compromise of sensitive data
- Cybertheft by hackers, malware, or viruses
- Ransomware, cyberthreats, or cyber extortion
- Accidental loss or destruction of patient data
Figuring out the best plan for your organization is tricky with so many options. Southpoint has the knowledge to guide you. All of our team members have at least five years of experience under their belt. We’re ready to lend a hand.
Why Do You Need Cyber Liability Insurance?
Cyber risk insurance for dentists covers categories that most commercial liability policies don’t. A well-rounded cyber liability plan expands your standard protection to account for scenarios that lead to data breaches and the loss of confidential patient data. Data exposure does more than affect your financial standing. Your patients’ privacy is jeopardized. Dental practices have a responsibility to address all cyberthreats quickly, efficiently, and thoroughly.
Dealing with a cybersecurity risk quickly helps minimize problems that could worsen the longer your computer network remains vulnerable. You should implement a plan that provides guidance and protection for:
- Business interruption costs
- Practice management, regulator, and patient notification expenses
- Credit monitoring for affected patients and practitioners
- Defense or litigation costs if your company is sued following the breach
- Data recovery and restoration services for damaged, lost, or corrupted assets
Satisfy the HIPAA Security Rule With Dental Cybersecurity Measures
The legal and financial repercussions of a data breach are compounded by a company’s failure to uphold the HIPAA Security Rule. The Security Rule is a collection of regulations to protect the privacy and security of certain health information. These security standards establish a national standard for protecting patient information held or transferred electronically. Covered entities, including dental offices, are responsible for complying with the rules under the threat of expensive penalties.
The goal of the Security Rule is to promote the privacy of patient data and sensitive information while allowing dental offices to pursue new technologies and processes to improve the quality of patient care. Practices that fail to implement safeguards that adequately protect their electronic assets violate the rule. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) can issue penalties in the form of civil money fines (up to $25,000 per year for multiple violations) or criminal fines for those who knowingly compromise identifiable health information.
A sound cyber liability policy ensures you have the data and resources to address network vulnerabilities and restore patient data. A business with a comprehensive plan can maintain compliance even after a cyberattack.
Ensure Complete Cybersecurity Compliance With Southpoint
Supplementing your business insurance coverages with commercial cyber liability insurance is an excellent way to reinforce your cybersecurity strategy. However, understanding what optional coverages are the best fit for your organization is challenging. That’s why Southpoint is here to guide you across the insurance landscape.
Our experts take the time to learn about your company and evaluate your vulnerability. We reevaluate your plan yearly to ensure you have all you need to combat the ever-changing strategies of malicious users. Are you worried about expensive coverage? We apply our industry relationships to find you the best policy at the best price.
Southpoint experts are ready to answer your questions and join you on your insurance journey. All you need to do is reach out.