COVID-19: The First Year in Review

Home For Business Risky Business Podcast COVID-19: The First Year in Review

Ryan Warner joins Paul Martin and Colin Rooke to look back at the past year and talk about COVID-19 and it’s impact on businesses.

Listen to the full episode here, or read the full transcript below.

Paul Martin:

Welcome to Risky Business Commercial Insurance with Butler Byers. Paul Martin, here, your host, and joining me as always Colin Rooke, the commercial risk reduction specialist with Butler Byers. And we have a special guest joining us today, Ryan Warner, who is the benefits specialist with them. And so we’re going to cover quite a wide range of topics today, Colin, but really it kind of sparks from the topic that is getting all the attention and headline. And I’m sure it’s driving HR departments crazy across the country, which is COVID. And we’re moving into this next phase of COVID, which is the vaccination piece. And people have held out the carrot for us that this is the last step on finding some light at the end of the tunnel. But as always, you have to work through things and we’re working through things, and I’m sure as a consequence, we’re learning things. So I’m guessing Colin. That’s why you have asked Ryan to come here today to talk to us about that.

Colin Rooke:

Yeah, I thought it was good to have Ryan back on the show and just give a COVID update, and I’m sure people are tired of hearing the term. I mean, maybe we could talk about Trump for the next 30 minutes, but I think it’s good to just touch base. We’re almost a year into this thing. Certainly in March it’ll be a year since the shutdown and just give a summary of, okay, where were we? Where we come from? Where are we now? And what’s changing in the future? There’s certainly a lot to discuss, for example, vaccines and testing, as an example. Is there anything employers can do? Is there any options there? Is there access to private vaccine? And Ryan’s going to touch on all that. But just a good, okay, we’re a year in and what has he seen, and also predictions on what’s to come. What’s the next 12, 18 months going to look like from a COVID and a benefits perspective?

Paul Martin:

A good observation as we get through a 10, 11, 12 months of having been a reality for employers in that first stage, you really just don’t know what’s going on. But now we’ve got the benefit of a year behind us. We’ve learned something. And Ryan, I’m just going to ask you to step up to the mic and to tell us, do you have any high level observations on big learnings that the insurance industry has seen, that you’ve seen, that employers have discovered through all of this? And I guess ultimately employees as well.

Ryan Warner:

Yeah, I think over the last year has been a bit like trial by firing squad. Everyone’s just learning as we go and early on in this whole process, I think the insurers did the right things to try to make a tough situation a little bit easier on employers. And for those that haven’t noticed on their renewals as they’re coming up now, you should be able to at least ask or confirm what they received in terms of COVID credits for the months where providers were shut down.

It’s been a crazy evolution as the insurance companies have gone from this, frankly, dinosaur way of doing business in their ivory towers with 4,000 bodies in one building, to rushing them all to work from home and trying to adjust their business technology-wise. So it’s really modernized the way that the insurance industry operates and COVID has had its impact on absolutely everybody, and the insurance company’s no different. So employers, I mean, although they’ve gotten the benefit of the COVID credits, I think every industry has been impacted differently. Some have had a boom as a result of this. Lots have been struggling and challenged with this. So it’s definitely been an evolution over the year.

Paul Martin:

Well you draw an interesting point here and I guess when you mentioned it, it just sort of seemed self-evident. But it’s not something we talk about along the way is that, hey, the insurance companies were learning how to do business differently through this thing as well. They’re no different than any other enterprise, that they too had to adjust and coping, and that probably was not seamless either.

Ryan Warner:

No, I mean, I have a front row seat. My spouse, she works for one of the major providers in Canada and the insurance companies were working towards this, let’s call it an agile work environment with more and more hoteling stations, but definitely wasn’t the priority one. And then all of a sudden it basically hit eject on these big businesses and their towers that they work in and get everybody possible out of the cubicle cities and into their homes.

Paul Martin:

Even the terminology. And we have been talking about hoteling spaces and these kinds of things, even 18 months ago. I mean, we’re all learning new language and with that comes new ways of doing things. And so if I am an employer, presumably I’m learning new stuff too, my interaction with you, and with you as just one on my supplier list, I’m having to relearn all of that. And what are you hearing from employers? And just a year later, have we found our footing yet, or are we still skating fast and hard and hoping to catch up?

Ryan Warner:

For the most part, I mean, I’m certainly grateful for the block of business that we look after. It seems to be that a good majority of the businesses that we work with and certainly the mid to larger case have all come back almost full force at this point. Now with the most recent lockdown measures, there’s been additional subtractions again. And I think employers are just, again, they’re evolving and doing what they need to do to keep as many people employed as possible. They’re looking at the suppliers like us and the insurance companies to see, is there any ways that they can sharpen pencils or tweak plan design? But the benefits space is one of those things that employers really are trying hard to maintain as much as possible, even for the folks they’re forced to lay off, just because naturally you want those people to have the coverage that they need in such a challenging time.

Paul Martin:

I like the way you put that actually is that we’re learning about just delivery mechanisms, and your observation that the employer and the industry are really striving, is the best way to put it, to keep things as normal as possible. We hear the term new normal, and you’re telling me here’s an industry that’s trying to keep the old normal as close as we can. The way we go about things may be different, but the actual product isn’t changing that much.

Ryan Warner:

For sure. We see such a wide range of industries. Everyone is a little bit different. The frontline healthcare workers, the retirement and nursing residents that we work with, they’re dealing with a very different struggle than most other industries at this point. So, it has been very interesting and educational as we’ve learned, as we’ve gone as well, to help these employers through the various challenges they’re facing.

Paul Martin:

Yeah, I guess you don’t have to be much of a consumer of news to know that different segments of the economy are feeling this in different ways. And you mentioned long-term care and people who have care homes. They have really been at the front line on this thing. If you use a war analogy, that is where the line is. And they’re getting the artillery, they’re getting it all. When you talk to those people, how are they holding up?

Ryan Warner:

Well, I think again, it’s one day to the next. I am impressed with our clients in particular and how fast they’ve reacted to every little nuance that they’ve been thrown into as a result of this pandemic. The testing measures that are required, and the tie-in with the governments, and how the entire pandemic is being handled. It’s just one challenge after another. And you have to credit those frontline workers and the organizations that they’re all tied to for everything that they’ve done to push through this and help the patients and their residents, in particular.

Paul Martin:

Yeah, I’m sure that they feel the burden of responsibility as well. And when you talk to them, they must feel that they know the lives of their clients are in their hands here. This is not just a basic service. It’s not like going to the store and buying a pack of gum. This is a much more in depth relationship.

Ryan Warner:

Certainly it is. And it’s also interesting the challenges in-house that these homes and facilities are facing when the human rights argument with taking vaccines is a whole different political conversation, maybe for another day. But certainly just the nature of what they’re facing in trying to get as many people vaccinated as possible and as many people tested as possible. I can’t even begin to fathom the challenge that they’re continuing to overcome.

Paul Martin:

All right, we’ve got to take a little break, Ryan. I’m going to come back and you said maybe a show for another day. Maybe a show for after this break. We might just pick that topic up again. You’re listening to Ryan Warner, who is a benefits specialist with Butler Byers, and you’re listening to Risky Business. We’re going to take a little break for a couple of minutes. So we’ll be back after this.

Welcome back to Risky Business. Paul Martin here, your host, and joining me, as always, Colin Rooke, the commercial risk reduction specialist at Butler Byers. And we have joining us, a fairly frequent participant in this program, Ryan Warner, who’s the benefits specialist with Butler Byers. And we’re talking about where we are a year or nearly a year into COVID and what it looks like from an employer’s perspective and from the insurance industry, and more specifically the benefits side of the insurance industry, what’s it looking like from there?

So just before the break, Ryan, you were talking about the whole change that we’re going through. We’re seeing just delivery mechanisms changing, and the kind of conversations we’re having now relate to, well, more private stuff like testing and these kinds of things. I’m sure you’re hearing about that, that employers are coming to you and say, “I want to get my employees tested and the drive-throughs and the stuff that the public sector is putting in, while effective, are backed up. And can I do this more efficiently as a private employer?” Are you having those kinds of conversations? Are those the types of questions you’re hearing?

Ryan Warner:

We are. So, I mean, we’re stepping outside my specific area of expertise. But naturally because of the nature of how it ties in, we do have clients consistently reaching out to us, trying to understand what their options are. Maybe more specifically, I should say, a lot of American parents companies have been coming forward inquiring about what they have at their disposal north of the border. And because of that, we’ve been trying to help in any way we can to do homework and find what private facilities or organizations are available to assist with some of the things that they want to do in terms of testing right now. It does seem to be different across the country. Every province is a little bit different. But in terms of the availability of support for private testing, it’s definitely out there.

Colin Rooke:

Ryan? [crosstalk 00:12:05].

Paul Martin:

Go ahead, Colin, jump in.

Colin Rooke:

Yeah. So I’m wondering what you’re seeing just on the claims side of the equation. So from a property-casualty perspective, for example, auto incidents are way down. And they’ve determined initially, of course, there is less drivers on the road when everyone was at home, but then now they’ve looked at it a little closer and they said, It’s not so much less drivers, it’s the overall attitude. There’s less people rushing to work, rushing to get somewhere. I got to pick up three kids and get them to eight different spots all within the hour.” So overall people are relaxed and certainly the number of auto-related incidents are way low.

And then you look at, well, this could apply to both commercial property and residential, but water losses. So a lot of water loss are human error. And again, when you’re at home or if you’re working from home, you’re less likely to miss the drip, the leak, that sort of thing, because of course you’re in your living room to hear it. And so I’m just wondering, are you seeing certain things increasing as a result of COVID, like short-term, long-term disability? Are you seeing other items decreasing? Yeah, of all things, dental is going down because people aren’t rushing to get their teeth cleaned because they’re more concerned about COVID than they are making sure they’re utilizing every dollar available on their plans. And things like a massage. And anyway, I’ll let you comment, but just wondering what you’re seeing on your side of the table on the benefits claims space.

Ryan Warner:

Well, I guess I’ll start by saying relaxed is probably the last word I use in the insurance industry right now. Patience is at an all time low. However, in terms of the adjustment over the last several months and where we’re at now, claims activities, they dropped off like a rock off a cliff initially when the pandemic hit. Just naturally, because so many providers went into shutdown mode or were forced into shutdown mode, I should say. And as they’ve come back and the comfort level through the summer months into the fall, came back to folks, it seemed like more and more, we’re going back to their dentists, back to their paramedical providers like massage and chiro, et cetera. So that really ramped back up.

We didn’t miss a beat on the medication side of things. I mean, naturally, if you need a medication, you kept taking that. So that being the primary piece of any benefits plan, it really didn’t drop off much, if at all. But as far as the more serious claims go, the disabilities and life insurance and so on, unfortunately there has been a quite serious uptake in life claims. I can speak from our block specifically to say that it’s sad. It’s a true situation that we’re facing a lot of heightened suicide rates, disability. I mean, mental health struggles are at an all time high. And that has been a trend that’s been going in the upward direction for years. Not just because of COVID. I think just naturally the pandemic forced people to really struggle that much more with their mental health challenges. So that has caused disability rates to increase as well.

And then you compound all of that with the low interest rate environment that we’re facing economically and insurance companies are facing pools that are not benefiting from the growth of interest investments. So our interest gains. So as a result, you’re seeing claims jump, and interest rates low, and those pools are having a rough go this year. That’s for sure.

Paul Martin:

There’s some really interesting points here, Ryan. Sorry, Colin. I just want to … In a way, what I’m hearing you say is the insurance industry’s claims experience on the benefits side particularly really is a bit of a proxy for telling us how the overall health of the population is going. Because, I mean, yes, we get it from the public health officers. But they’re really worried about prevention mechanisms and restrictions and how do you keep it from spreading? And you’re saying, here’s what we’re seeing as how it’s actually impacting real people.

Ryan Warner:

I think that’s a great perspective and every insurer has a different segment, different demographic structure. So, does one insurer have a blanketed perspective over the entire nation? I would say no, but certainly they would have a very good indication within their own blocks and pools of how the population is doing through this.

Paul Martin:

And I would guess that Colin’s point earlier, my initial response would have been, “Well, I can’t get into the dentist, or even if they are open now it’s on such restricted hours that there couldn’t be very many dental claims.” And you’re saying, “Yeah, that’s true. But that’s not the big one. The big one is really around the longer-term health of people in mental health and those kinds of things.” So it’s a very interesting perspective that there are commercial and economic implications to this that sometimes get overlooked.

Ryan Warner:

For sure. The aspect of your dental comment there too. I would take that a one step further to say that employers have relaxed a little bit in what they’re allowing employees to do, so more and more are getting out to see their providers as they need it.

Paul Martin:

Well, that’s good. Well, thank you again, Ryan. As always, you bring some interesting insights and you a national perspective that sometimes we lack here. So thank you for that. You have been listening to Ryan Warner, the benefits specialist with Butler Byers and Colin Rooke the commercial risk reduction specialist at Butler Byers. I’m Paul Martin. You’re listening to Risky Business. Thanks for joining us. We’ll talk to you next time.

Speaker 4:

Oh, that’s hilarious, actually. Okay, we’re back on.

Paul Martin:

All right. You’re rolling?

Speaker 4:

Yep.

Paul Martin:

Welcome to Risky Business Commercial Insurance with Butler Byers. Paul Martin here, your host. And joining me, Colin Rooke, the commercial risk reduction specialist with Butler Byers. And we have a special guest joining us today. Ryan Warner, who’s the benefits specialist with Butler Byers, and has a national perspective as well, because he does work not just here, but right across the country. He is able to figure out some of the bigger trends that are going on.

Colin, before we bring Ryan in, we’re pretty much a year now into the COVID lockdown stuff. We’ve known about it for about 14, 15 months, and we probably know more about pandemics, and virus transmission, and COVID and stuff than most real people would’ve known in or ever imagined they would have needed to know. But as you look back now, I mean, do you have some thoughts or some observations from your business perspective? I mean, a year ago, you weren’t talking about this stuff. Today, how much are you talking about it?

Colin Rooke:

You mean about COVID specifically? It is the basis of every single conversation, I would say, we have with our clients. We’re either explaining the impacts of COVID on the hard market, or impacts of COVID on, for example, the pricing of directors and officers insurance, or even the availability. We are apologizing for tardy return times due to challenges with COVID. Working with Lloyd’s of London and underwriters and adjusters on claims. And in fact that’s a really good topic for a future show is claims and COVID. One, it’s particularly difficult if you’re having any sort of work done. You have to be careful with … Well, I mean, obviously, exposure, right?

And then on the reno side, people think, “Oh great. I’m getting a thousand dollar reno. It’s like, “You are, but you got to keep in mind that you’re going to have your home full of people that are out and about and have their own circles.”

So, we are talking about it all the time at every renewal. And I’ll say every call that we have with our clients or prospects, some COVID element does come up. It’s not all bad. I mean, a lot of our conversations are, “Look, you’ve had some time to slow down and think about your business and look at your systems and your processes. Internally, I’ll say, we are continuously looking at lean systems, but we are revisiting all of our workflows after already going through lean to say, “Well, what can we automate now? What can we change? What did we learn from COVID?” And we’re even having conversations on the HR side around return to work, and who’s coming back, and mental health around how our people are feeling. Are they suffering from Zoom fatigue, or have they never been more energized with the flexibility of working from home? And I’d say for every one person that’s saying, “I can’t stand it”, there’s someone saying, “This is arguably the best thing, career-wise, that’s ever happened to me.” So it’s really all over the map.

Paul Martin:

It is all over the map. And there’s a saying that I really like that flows from times like this, which is, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. In the sense that when there’s a crisis that you’re facing, people are very motivated to accept, or attempt, or try new ideas. They’re very change oriented. And often you will hear the challenges that management, or leadership in general, of trying to encourage people to embrace change, because the status quo is just way easier and it’s a lot less frightening. But we are seeing change now. And I think you’re just describing it that way. And some of it’s good, some of it’s bad, and probably that’s what you would expect in any kind of a crisis.

Colin Rooke:

Yeah. And it’s funny, the conversations that we’re having, I mean, I didn’t think on the risk reduction side that so much of it would ever be centered around one thing. I mean, I thought that maybe over the years we’ve gone too heavy on the cyber discussion, but of course it’s top of mind. And then now, if I bring up the idea of a disaster recovery plan with a client it’s, “Yeah, yeah. That’s good. Let’s talk about COVID stuff.” It’s just so top of mind that it’s really hard to get to the other risks, like having conversations around culture and cohesive management team. But if I phrase it with, how is the management team working during this period of COVID, are you remaining cohesive? Let’s talk about that. I can sneak it in that way. But I find if you don’t use the word COVID, it’s, “Hey, let’s talk about something important.”

Paul Martin:

Well, joining us also is Ryan Warner who is your benefits specialist, and Ryan, maybe I’ll just get you to jump in the conversation. You’d been hearing us talk here, and I don’t know if that sparked any thoughts for you. But I’m really just curious about, if we stick around that concept of change and that a crisis foments change, what changes are you seeing? How are businesses trying to improve their best practices?

Ryan Warner:

Yeah, all of a sudden, I think it’s a little bit all over the place. Every industry’s handling this so differently. If we focus in on the frontline long-term care facilities in particular, they’re naturally just doing everything they can to stay at [inaudible 00:23:55]. To equate it, it’s kind of like drinking from a fire hose right now. It seems like there’s just a constant flow of information. So to adjust and do what they need to do to survive and get through this is all they can do. I’m fascinated in particular by how some of these homes and facilities are responding to having access to vaccinations, having access to their testing in homes. It’s a completely different ball game in that world versus most other industries. So best practices is one thing, but certainly just the evolution of the pandemic and how it’s impacting a specific industry is quite the conversation.

Paul Martin:

You mentioned, you singled out that industry and I think it’s interesting because they’ve been categorized as the high risk category and that vulnerable populations. And so they’ve been put to the front of the parade for vaccines and for the administration of vaccine. And I assume that as soon as you put any population, regardless of its size, front of the line, as you start to work your way through that population, you begin to learn things. Some people react differently than others. I’m guessing you’ve seen that too.

Ryan Warner:

Definitely. I think about the employers and it seems so simple. Some things like, “Okay, we’re first out of the Gates to get vaccinated and we’re going to get as many people in here taking care of that way as possible.” And yet when you start to get into the challenging conversation of different viewpoints on who is and isn’t going to take a vaccine for one reason or another, that can really quickly derail what seems to be such a simple decision, at least in my humble opinion. And I don’t claim to be a vaccine expert.

But I mean, I’ve seen firsthand our own clients struggling to get the masses of their staff to agree to the fact of getting a vaccine. So, again, it just seems so simple that, here is the vaccine, it’s ready to be taken, and yet you’re going to have a whole number of folks that may decline it.

Paul Martin:

Isn’t that interesting. I mean, you do hear about people declining, but you’d think those on the frontline who actually experienced it more than any other segment of the population would be the ones to embrace it. And you say, “Well, don’t make assumptions.” It’s not necessarily so.

Ryan Warner:

I’m floored by some of the things that I’ve heard and seen. I mean, again, I guess everyone’s entitled to their own belief system. And right now, I mean, just the nature of what we’re facing, where someone gets their information via their media source or their news source, it can skew someone’s perspective so quickly. And I’ve heard things anywhere from the vaccine could cause you not to be able to get pregnant in the future. I have no justification for that type of comment. I just can’t fathom how that’d be possible. But again, I’m not the expert.

Paul Martin:

Well, it is interesting. And I mean, it can be critical or not, but the fact is, there it is. That’s the viewpoint some people have. And it’s interesting to note, even at the political level, we hear phrases that we’ll have enough vaccine available for everyone who wants one. It’s not that everyone will have one, it’s everyone who wants one. So even at the highest levels politically, we’ve accepted that there are differing viewpoints on this. So you draw an interesting observation.

Listen, we’ve got to take a little break. We’re going to come back. And I want to pick this conversation up because this is the more fascinating piece of where the rubber hits the road in the next stage of the COVID crisis, which is vaccination rollout. So you’re listening to Risky Business Commercial Insurance with Butler Byers. Joining me today is Ryan Warner, is a benefits specialist. We’ll have him back after this short break.

Welcome back to Risky Business. Paul Martin here. And in studio is Colin Rooke, the commercial risk reduction specialist with Butler Byers. And when I say in studio, I use that loosely because it’s the studio in his basement. But also joining us is Ryan Warner, who’s in his den at home as well. And he’s a benefits specialist. And Ryan, just before the break, we were talking about how what seems to be fairly straightforward isn’t necessarily straight forward, but there are always exceptions. Vaccinations, for example. Some people are refusing them. So you would think it was a fairly straightforward process. Not necessarily. I’m guessing that this is all part of the learning curve and it just makes things that much more complicated for employers, for insurance companies, for insurance brokers, for all of you that are playing through the whole system.

Ryan Warner:

Yeah. Well, and intertwined in that same conversation is the very different worlds that are south of the border in the United States and here, and how employers that have bodies on both sides of the border are looking at this entire pandemic and how we get out of it, and the vaccines as it ties in. I mean, again, just the way things are handled south of the border versus here, it has a material difference on the perspective of the employers and how they’re trying to help their employees. So it’s been interesting times.

Paul Martin:

No kidding. But I guess while we’re talking really in the show, the theme is anomalies and how there’s change. But there is some things that don’t change too. Colin, you might want to chime in on this, but I’m thinking that one of our other perennial topics on this program is cyber security and cyber threats. I’m guessing they have not gone away through all of this and that that continues to be the thing that hasn’t changed.

Colin Rooke:

No. Yeah, it’s growing, it’s getting worse. The cyber criminals, hackers, if you want to call them that, are very aware that it’s easier to intercept employees logging in remotely than being inside the confines of the server and the firewall. So there’s a lot more low hanging fruit. And I think too, just you think about people just being globally distracted on top of that. You look at the number and volume of just online activity, online transactions. You can’t go to your local store, so you have less savvy consumers looking for items that they can’t find, or they aren’t able to, or willing, to pick up in person.

So one of the new trends, of course, well, it’s not a new trend, it’s just increasing exponentially, is just fake websites, essentially. You think you’re getting the cat house that you couldn’t find locally, or again, didn’t want to pick up or couldn’t find it on Amazon. And so you find a website, well, they’re not really selling cat houses. They are just stealing information. And so it’s growing, but it’s also changing. The cyber criminals always seem to be not even one step, several steps ahead of the public at large. And it’s just getting worse from a claims perspective.

One of the new topics that is really emerging on the personal line side, or individual insurance, is also, do individuals need to purchase cyber liability or breach coverage? Which it’s certainly gaining traction, and I think in the next year will be a common topic.

Paul Martin:

You think we might see that where it’s an add on to your home policy or something?

Colin Rooke:

Yeah. It’s available. It’s just, like cyber liability for businesses, it’s just been slow. People think, “Well, that’s not going to happen to me, or what do I have that someone else might want?” But again, if you’ve ever had your information stolen, you can have your own business interruption claim, meaning there could be impacts to your daily lives. And so it is available as an add on to some, I’ll say, not all home insurance policies, but you can also buy standalone coverage, and it’s growing. It’s just, unfortunately, it takes more individuals to be effected and then suffer a large loss as a result, that will get more people talking about it and then buying the coverage as a result. And that’s what’s certainly happening now.

Paul Martin:

Ryan, I’m going to get you to jump in. You see a lot more stuff nationally than either Colin or I would. This whole notion of cyber threats, I’m assuming you’re seeing that nationally as well. And perhaps even more accentuated in larger population-based communities, such as say Southern Ontario.

Ryan Warner:

Yeah. The insurance industry is certainly … This is not a foreign topic. This is something that they would be working with consistently. I happen to be married to a compliance and privacy manager at one of the major insurers. So I happened to hear about these types of things far more than most. From my own perspective, I mean, just the simple, subtle things that a plan administrator or business should be doing as best practices is just consistently keeping an eye out on who they’re delegating access to.

The insurers provide a fairly open stream for plan administrators to provide that access. And it is the responsibility of [inaudible 00:33:51] admin to terminate somebody’s access if they’re no longer with the company. I was actually recently working on a case where a plan administrator hadn’t been with the company for several years and had still maintained their access. Fortunately, it didn’t seem that they were aware of it. But the nature of that is here’s someone that hasn’t been with the company for many years and still could log in and access old data. So important that the clients are being diligent about that. That’s for sure.

Paul Martin:

I’m assuming that involves things like checklists and just best practices, standard operating procedures. The heat was never under this one before, right? Nobody paid attention to it. All of a sudden now it’s been elevated on the list of priorities and potential threats. And it’s not a bad idea for employers to go back and take a look and say, “Are all our systems up date?”

Ryan Warner:

If it’s not on your annual checklist, I mean, I would at least make sure it is annually to double check who’s got access, who should have access, and certainly who should not.

Paul Martin:

Well, that’s most interesting. And I’m just curious, is there a specific COVID over lay on this? Has any of this become more accentuated because COVID is on us?

Ryan Warner:

Based on a couple of current scenarios that I’ve been facing, I don’t know that it’s specific to COVID, but I mean, I can certainly speak to the fact that the insurers are very quickly having to evolve their technology and their systems to defend against all that Colin was already talking about. The nature of everyone booting home and now working from your home office or your dining room table. I mean, it’s a whole different ball game now versus working in one structure with a sound security.

Paul Martin:

Well, Ryan, I want to thank you for sitting in with us. Your insights are always very useful. And Colin, we’ve got maybe a half a minute left in today’s time allocation. I’ll just give it to you to offer some overview comments or summarize what you’ve heard here. What should we be watching for?

Colin Rooke:

Well, I think just on the nature of cyber security on the both have benefits and PNC and personal lines, it’s education is key. For the individuals listening to the show, teach yourself, look into it, know how you as an individual could be impacted. But as far as the organization’s concerned, take privacy breach very seriously. We hadn’t ran into or thought of the idea that, “Well, failure to remove a password could cause a data breach from an old employee poking around.” And the thing is, depending on what sort of information was accessible, they don’t even need to prove that that employee was in there as much as that they could have been, and they don’t know what they did or didn’t do over the years. I mean, if we’re talking a three-year span, you really can’t track. So education and awareness is just key.

Paul Martin:

Awareness. That is hopefully what we’re bringing to the fore today. So thank you as always, Colin. Colin Rooke, the commercial risk reduction specialist with Butler Byers. You’ve been listening to Risky Business. Thanks for joining us. We’ll talk to you next time.