What to Expect from Cyber Insurance Applications in 2022

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Applying for Cyber Insurance

Cyber insurance claims have increased as successful cyber attacks have heightened, causing insurers to implement a much more detailed and exhaustive underwriting process. The days of quick cyber insurance applications are long gone – so what can you expect in the years to come? How can you provide insurers with an accurate picture of your risk profile?

Applications in the Past

For many years, cyber insurance applications have consisted of, generally, the same 30-50 questions. Answers were grouped into standard categories like information security, third party services, risk background, loss experience, and current coverage. This information would help insurers get a grasp on:

  • Who is responsible for cybersecurity at your company
  • If you are responsible for storing, processing, or transmitting sensitive data
  • What technologies are used to protect data, systems, and your environment
  • If you have documented policies and processes that address cybersecurity
  • Your company’s history of cyberattacks or data loss
  • Whether you are in compliance with any industry standards or regulations

These questions were pretty painless to answer and didn’t require much information gathering or collaboration. When organizations submitted an application for a high dollar policy, they could count on insurers not needing to verify much else.

Expect Exhaustive Applications

In 2022, organizations can expect a lot more questions in a cyber insurance application. In addition to the general risk information collected in past applications, the latest cyber insurance applications now include questionnaires about:

  • Specific controls that secure data whether it’s stored, processed, or transmitted
  • What data backups are in place  
  • If an organization follows IAM best practices
  • Specific controls that protect the network
  • Firewall configurations
  • Patching cadence
  • Cloud security
  • Specific controls that mitigate ransomware
  • What type of security awareness training is required of employees
  • Agreements with third parties or vendors
  • Review of specific documentation like Incident Response Plans, Disaster Recovery Plans, and Business Continuity Plans
  • Review of annual risk assessment
  • Review of audit reports, if applicable

You must be as thorough as possible in your application. Once you submit this information, you may be subject to more extensive questionnaires or even interviews with team members that oversee IT, cybersecurity, or compliance programs

Getting the Details Right

With the level of information now required by underwriters, you can’t assign the insurance application or renewal process to just one person in your company. Who should fill out your cyber insurance application? With the new complexities, it may be appropriate to get input from:

  • Internal IT team, IT provider, or managed service provider
  • Risk managers
  • Privacy officers
  • Compliance officers
  • Finance department
  • Marketing department
  • HR department
  • Executive team or c-suite
  • Board of directors

By collaborating with many different departments in your organization, you give yourself the best chance of success.

With the right guidance and planning, you can renew an existing policy with minimal changes in coverage or fees – but it’s critical that you understand the changes in the industry and how to fill out a detailed application.

To prevent denials or a decrease in coverage, start preparing for your renewal with our self-led security risk assessment. If you’d prefer one of our IT experts walk you through the process, get in touch with us and a member of our team would be more than happy to assist.

6 Myths About Outsourcing IT

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It’s Time to Say “Yes” to an IT Provider

Could a managed service provider be the partner you need for IT? Let’s break down the six myths we commonly hear about why companies cannot outsource IT support and management.

“We just upgraded our technology.”

That’s great! A good IT provider isn’t looking to add more to your stack, upsell you, or make IT complicated. Our job is to leverage the technology you already have and make IT run more efficiently. We might even reduce costs by identifying redundant or wasteful technology.

“We already have someone who takes care of IT.”

We love working with companies that value their IT resources. Whether your IT staff is a whole department or just an individual, Dedicated IT can provide your IT staff with the bandwidth to work proactively on core issues vs. whack-a-mole reactive support. Plus – haven’t you ever considered what it would look like to have additional hands on-deck when your team needs specific expertise, takes vacation, or simply feels buried?  

“We are too small.”

This is one of the most dangerous approaches a business can have when it comes to IT. Just because you’re small doesn’t mean catastrophic IT issues won’t arise or that you’re not a target for cyber attacks. No matter the size of your business, you deserve an IT partner that helps you prepare for IT time bombs and build a secure infrastructure.

“We don’t have the budget for it.”

The IT budget is a concern for every business, often because it’s an area where it’s easy to overspend. That’s why we’re so focused on providing predictability to IT costs. Within the first months of partnership, we are determined to find ways to stabilize the IT budget – and we have been successful at it!

“Our current IT provider built our infrastructure.”

You’re not stuck with the same IT provider forever – you can make the switch! Our technicians are experts in understanding and upgrading environments, creating a strategy, providing support, and maximizing profits.

“We never outsource anything, ever.”

We get that – but what do you do when you need very specific IT expertise? What happens if a disaster strikes your organization? Working with Dedicated It isn’t your typical outsourcing experience. We pride ourselves on our ability to integrate easily, as if we were on your staff.  

Finding the Right IT Provider to Outsource IT

It’s a tough decision to make the move to outsource IT, but with the right managed service provider, the return could be:

  • Deeper insight into IT projects
  • Daily tasks completed more efficiently
  • Stable and predictable IT costs
  • Dependable, high-quality IT support for your staff

Don’t wait until something breaks or someone quits. Contact us today to gain access to our team of in-house IT technicians and support specialists.

It might be time to outsource IT

When Technology’s Speed and Performance Impacts Patient Care

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How Can IT Solve Speed and Performance Issues?

We’ve all been there – that frustrating moment of waiting for your keyboard to catch up with your typing, watching an application load at a snail’s pace, or patiently sitting at your desk waiting for the Internet to come back on. What’s the root cause of technology being slow to respond? How can you identify and fix speed and performance issues?

Let’s take a look at the healthcare sector and how the speed and performance of technology can delay patient care or impact the bottom line.

When Speed and Performance Become a Company-Wide Pain Point

Your organization experiences a decline in speed and performance any time a device, application, browser, or network is unresponsive or slow to respond. It’s an IT pain point that can be pretty specific based on what an organization does, but common scenarios are:

  • Computers take a long time to boot into OS
  • Applications or browsers take a long time to load
  • Computers are slow to respond to clicking, typing, or touching
  • Device reset or shutdown takes a while
  • Internet constantly goes out

When an employee or a customer becomes annoyed or due to slow or unresponsive technology or it’s impacting the bottom line in some way, IT is typically the first to hear about it and is tasked with finding a solution.

Speed and performance issues in technology is about as frustrating as sitting in traffic. You know you’re stuck, but you don’t know why. If you want to do something about it, you need to understand what the source of the traffic is. It is construction or an accident? Typical rush hour or congestion from a concert?

What Slow and Unresponsive Technology Means to Healthcare

The speed and performance of technology is essential to healthcare practices, for both employees and patients. When a workstation is running slowly, that might prevent a nurse from clocking out on time or moving onto new tasks. When scheduling tools are unresponsive, patients experience long wait times when they can’t afford to sit on hold.

Think about the vast amount of technology required for any type of healthcare practice. There are patient portals, EMRs, telehealth software, imaging, communication or collaboration tools, and even something as simple as the Internet. Technology speed and performance is critical in healthcare because so much depends on it, from everyday tasks to live-saving procedures.

How to Improve Speed and Performance 

We believe in a two-part approach to solving speed and performance issues.

First, you have to understand what is slow. Is it slow to respond, or completely useless? Is it the machine or the Internet? Is it the software or the device? Is it happening at one workstation or all of them? This may seem like a basic concept, but you can’t fix speed and performance issues without knowing the cause. A technologist must be able to listen to someone explain their speed and performance complaint and discern the real problem, not the perceived problem. Walking into a situation with a “fix-it” mindset might not solve the root cause, which is most important.

Second, you have to get real: it is a technology problem or a people problem? A technology problem are things like bugs, updates, or replacements. There’s nothing that the user is wrong, it’s literally a technical issue that needs a fix. People problems are more common than you might think. A people problem might look like a lack of training or adoption – we’ve all had coworkers who don’t take IT training seriously or refuse to implement new processes. Or maybe technology just isn’t functioning as the user expected it to, but their expectations were misaligned to begin with.

Say, for instance, an employee reports that they’re experiencing a slow EMR. They might ask your IT department or managed service provider if this is normal, especially in comparison to other users of this EMR. It’s the technologist’s job to figure out what is slow – the EMR? Or the network that the EMR is running on? Could it be a cloud issue? What about the machine the EMR is running on? Is the user using the EMR correctly?

This two-part approach will solve IT tickets efficiently and effectively. If your technologists cannot determine what is causing speed and performance to decline and whether it’s a technology problem or a people problem, you might not have the right type of technologists on staff. They need to know your staff, understand how your staff uses technology, and honor the importance of IT speed and performance.

At the end of the day, your practice is trying to deliver quality, efficient patient care and if you have problems with the speed and performance of your system and processes, you won’t be able to do that. That’s where Dedicated IT can help. With our suite of IT services, robust healthcare-specific knowledge and our two-step approach, we can take the frustration out of speed and performance issues at your practice, allowing you to shift your focus on providing excellent patient care. Don’t wait until your next outage. Contact us today to get started.

5 Reasons You’re Seeing Changes in Cyber Insurance

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Why Insurers are Shifting the Industry

Cyber insurance protects organizations from the financial and operational impact of cyber attacks – but not from the attack itself. Getting approved for the appropriate amount of cyber insurance coverage is crucial to risk management, but over the last three years, insurers and underwriters have changed their approach to accommodate the rising claims from ransomware, social engineering, hacking, or email compromise. Over 50% of insurance brokers’ clients saw prices go up 10–30% in 2020, then another 30-40% in 2021.​ What’s the cause of these changes?

1. Industry Costs are Rising

In the past, cyber insurance was a soft market characterized by high capacity and low premiums​. The world we live in today has changed that. Systems, processes, and workflow changes have increased costs for insurers – but the threats have evolved too. The costs associated with recovering from a cyberattack have skyrocketed in the last few years, going from $760,000 to $1.85 million. The entire cyber insurance industry has hardened as insurers see their payouts rising faster than the income from premiums.​ Changes have to be made to account for rising costs and threats.

2. Coverage is Changing

Businesses that have cyber insurance have been used to minimal security requirements and lax underwriting resulting in full coverage, no questions asked.​ But now? Insurers are becoming willing to restrict coverage, with ransomware events being the most affected area of coverage. Sub-limits, co-insurance, and even ransomware exclusions are becoming more common.​

Forbes Technology Council comments, “In the foreseeable future, cyber insurance companies will likely mimic healthcare insurers by mandating so many exclusions, co-pays and deductibles that cyber insurance policies will barely be worth purchasing. As insurers set caps or walk away entirely, businesses and consumers will be left to absorb massive losses.”​

3. Remediation is More Complicated

In 2021, the average breach lifecycle is 287 days. And there’s a lot to do in those 287 days! Does your business have three quarters of a year to recover from a breach?

Remediation involves forensics, security experts, legal teams, regulators, PR consultants, breach notification processes – how do you know what’s covered by insurance and what isn’t? Historically, businesses have been able to submit a claim and get the money they need to remediate. These days, too many businesses get caught off guard once they submit a claim because they realize their policy doesn’t cover everything associated with remediation expenses.

4. Guidelines are Not Standardized

Because the cyber insurance industry is evolving so rapidly, underwriters are struggling with standardization for coverage. Every provider is doing things differently. What we know is that underwriters care about gaps in risk profiles. If a business is not doing anything to protect itself from ransomware, underwriters won’t be interested in covering them. There won’t be payouts for compromise due to the use of outdated or unsupported technologies and processes. Businesses could be subjected to limited coverage, modified policy language, sublimit, co-insurance, or additional premium charges if a provider decides the risk profile is too high.

5. Applications are More Complex

Cyber insurance applications, in the past, were pretty painless to complete. Submit your application for a high dollar policy, but insurers don’t need to verify much else. No one looks at the effectiveness of risk management practices. But because of the increase in claims due to cyber attacks, insurers are taking a closer look during the underwriting process. The days of quick cyber insurance applications are gone. They’ve begun to focus on implementation of foundational elements of security, like MFA, IAM policies, backups, and employee training. In many cases, underwriters are even collaborating with cyber professionals to properly evaluate risk and scope coverage.​

With the right guidance and planning, you can renew an existing policy with minimal changes in coverage or fees – but it’s critical that you understand the changes in the industry and your risk profile.

To prevent denials or a decrease in coverage, start preparing for your renewal with our self-led security risk assessment. If you’d prefer an IT expert to walk you through the process, get in touch with us and a member of our team would be more than happy to assist.

Streamline your cyber insurance renewal with underwriters and insurers

What are the Most Problematic Technology Issues for Orthopedic Professionals?

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Dedicated IT was recently an exhibitor at the 2022 AAOE Annual Conference in Chicago, the leading industry meeting for orthopedic practice management professionals. As the top managed service provider in the healthcare space, Dedicated IT wants to discover specific pain points about IT within the orthopedic sector. The more we know, the more we can support practice managers and customize an orthopedic-specific IT support model.

Speed, Support, and Collaboration Issues

In our survey at the AAOE Annual Conference, we found that the most problematic technology, according to orthopedic professionals, are:

  1. Speed and Performance
  2. IT Support, Operations, and Experience
  3. Phone and Collaboration

These three factors outranked issues with EMR or LOBs, wired or wireless networking, compliance, security, and data protection.

The speed and performance of technology is essential to orthopedic practices, for both staff and patients. Every healthcare practice uses a huge amount of technology to deliver patient care. There are employee workstations, patient portals, billing software, communication tools, telehealth applications, EMRs, imaging, and even something as simple as the Internet. The speed and performance of all technology is critical to orthopedic professionals because so much depends on it, from everyday practice management tasks to live-saving procedures.

The daily maintenance of IT infrastructure is also weighing on orthopedic practices. The crux of IT operations is the right staff – whether internal or external – but our survey shows us that practice managers are struggling to find the right IT talent. Issues with IT operations causes daily bottlenecks that impact both staff and patients.

Phone and collaboration tools are critical to all healthcare practices, but in the orthopedic specialty, it’s especially crucial. Each day, practice managers communicate with staff, patients, vendors, and other healthcare partners via phone systems and collaboration tools. If this technology presents challenges to orthopedic practices, it quickly impacts employees and patients.

Supporting Practice Managers in Orthopedics

With the right strategy and partner, speed, support, and collaboration don’t have to be problematic area in technology. Practice managers deserve to leverage IT that builds an even stronger, more streamlined practice.

The Dedicated IT events team will continue to collect data around IT pain points and problematic technology throughout the year, spanning several healthcare specialties. Will we see you at our next event? We hope so!

Watch Our Recap of AAOE 2022 Now

5 Signs You’ve Outgrown Your Current IT

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Get More Out of Your Investment in Technology

How do you know when you’ve reached the point where your organization needs more from IT? As your organization grows and business objectives shift, your IT strategy must change as well. Many organizations feel this growing pain on a daily basis, but aren’t able to figure out why. We commonly see five areas that begin to decline: quality and functionality of IT, vendor management, security posture, budget stability, and the growth plan. If decision makers let these things go unnoticed, they put their staff and technology at risk for compromise.

1. Quality is Declining

Experiencing outages more frequently? Constantly hearing employees complain? Watching the support ticket queue grow? It’s the worst feeling. You have the power to change that by partnering with a provider that supports your business objectives and delivers tried and true, scalable IT services.

2. Vendor Management is Overwhelming

When you engage with more vendors and your team doesn’t know how to handle that, vendor management quickly becomes a major area of vulnerability. It’s time to find an IT provider that understands what vendor management entails and does it well.

3. Security is Struggling

Does the thought of a security breach keep you up at night? This is the case for many IT leaders that don’t have confidence in their security posture or their team. A trusted IT provider can relieve that feeling by developing an enhanced strategy with security at the forefront.

4. Budget is Increasing

If surprise costs or fees have become a regular occurrence, it’s time to re-evaluate how your planning and strategy. IT doesn’t need to be over budget. An provider that’s invested in your success will give you predictable IT costs.

5. Growth is Forgotten

Do you have a plan in place to move your strategy forward? IT must scale alongside the rest of your organization. If growth and scalability aren’t a factor in your IT strategy, that needs to change.

Implement a Strategy that Scales

When your organization needs more from IT, it’s critical to find a solution that will enhance your staff and infrastructure. Partnering with a managed service provider is one way of ensuring quality of IT services, offloading vendor management, focusing on security, stabilizing the budget, and making a plan for growth.

Get more out of your investment in IT

Discovering the Technology Factors That Matter to Dermatology Professionals

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This year, Dedicated IT was a first-time exhibitor at the 30th ADAM Annual Meeting in Boston, the leading industry meeting for dermatology professionals, created by practice administrators and managers. As the top managed service provider in the healthcare space, Dedicated IT wants to discover specific pain points about IT within the dermatology sector. The more we know, the more we can customize a dermatology-specific IT support model and improve IT operations.

Key Takeaways from ADAM

In our survey at the ADAM Annual Meeting, we found that the most important factors for technology, according to dermatology professionals, are speed and performance, security or security posture, and IT operations. These three factors outrank phone and collaboration, data protection, wired/wireless networking, compliance, and EMR or line of business applications. It comes as no surprise to find security among the top-of-mind factors, as dermatology practices must protect valuable PHI and face constant cyber threats.

Interestingly, IT operations ranked as one of the most important factors and the most problematic factors – showing that the daily maintenance of IT infrastructure is weighing on dermatology practices. Our survey results also show that phone and collaboration as well as data protection are other problematic technology factors within the dermatology space.

With the right strategy and partner, dermatology practices can use IT to strengthen their security posture and support imaging, communication, information transfers, and treatment technology. At Dedicated IT, you will receive managed IT services that your dermatology practice can depend on. Whether you outsource IT or have a full-time IT staff, our solutions can support and integrate with your existing IT operations.

Our events team will continue to collect data around IT pain points throughout the year, spanning several healthcare specialties. Will we see you at our next event? We hope so!