In October 2020, Forbes Magazine posed a great question: What’s something that stands between you and a cybercriminal that’s in your full control? The answer — your password. This powerful combination of letters, numbers and characters has the ability to expose your banking information, email account(s), social medial account(s), or, even worse, your full identity and IRS documents.

Cybersecurity and attacks are unfortunately not new to the insurance industry, but the constant headlines are a reminder that we can take small steps to deter criminals from getting what they want. Some ways to enact immediate protection are to ensure you have different passwords for all platforms, turn on two-factor authentication when available and simply be aware of potentially suspicious activity, especially on banking and credit card statements.

As an appointed USLI customer or policyholder, you have access to our Business Resource Center, which offers a suite of free and discounted services to help you run your business or sell your next policy. One of the free services available to help manage your cyber risk is eRiskHub, which includes:

  • Cyber risk assessments
  • A data breach cost calculator
  • Tools to minimize the effects of a breach

This platform offers countless loss control measures to apply professionally and personally to ensure you are protected. For best practices on protecting what matters most, use this guide as a key reference. While cyberattacks do not appear to be slowing down, by taking an active role in your own protection, you can seek to deter cybercriminals before they access your information.

As always, thank you for your support and business.