Author Archives: Emily Holbrook

About Emily Holbrook

Emily Holbrook is a former editor of the Risk Management Monitor and Risk Management magazine. You can read more of her writing at EmilyHolbrook.com.
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Top 10 Ways Businesses Can Protect Consumers

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In a world where customers are frequently being taken advantage of online, a business’s top priority is to protect their most prized asset: the client. With that in mind, the Online Trust Alliance (OTA) has issued its Top 10 recommendations for 2011 to help businesses protect consumers from being fooled. The list includes techniques that businesses can use to help their customers (and even their employees) from deceptive and malicious online threats. Here are the top five:

  1. Upgrade all employees to the most current version of browsers that have integrated phishing and malware protection and privacy controls including support of “Do Not Track” mechanisms and controls. Such controls provide users the control on third party data collection, usage and data sharing of their online browsing activities, while balancing out the value of ad supported online services. Encourage consumers to update their browsers by notifying them of insecure and outdated browsers.
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    In addition consider terminating support for end-of-life browsers with known vulnerabilities by preventing log-ons and providing instructions to upgrade.

  2. Establish and maintain a Domain Portfolio Management program that includes monitoring look-a-like or homograph-similar domains and tracking renewals to prevent “drop catching” of expiring domains. Domain locking is recommended to help guard against unintended changes, deletions or domain transfers to third parties.
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    Such programs and practices can help protect a company’s brand assets and consumers from landing on look-alike sites compromising trademarks and trade names.

  3. Adopt Email Authentication including both SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) to help reduce the incidence of spoofed and forged email, helping to prevent identity theft and the distribution of malicious malware from tarnishing your brand reputation. Authenticated email allows ISPs, mailbox providers and corporate networks an added ability to block deceptive email, reduce false positives and protect online brands and sites from deception.
  4. Encrypt all data files containing customer profiles, email address and or PII, which are transmitted externally or stored on portable devices or media including flash and USB drives.
  5. Upgrade to Extended Validation Secure Socket Layer Certificates (EVSSL) for all sites requesting sensitive information including registration, e-commerce, online banking and any data which may request PII or sensitive information.  Use of EVSSL certificates help to increase consumer confidence of your online brand. When an EVSSL is presented, the address bar turns green providing the user a higher confidence level the site and company they are visiting is a legitimate business.

“The Internet has become a foundation of commerce, communication and community. As such, business and government have a shared responsibility to take steps to curb cybercrime and online abuse,” said Senator Joe Lieberman. “There are a lot of simple, common-sense steps that both businesses and consumers can take to make them more secure.

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I applaud OTA’s efforts to promote practices which enhance the internet’s integrity, privacy, security and resiliency.” Click for the complete list of OTA’s top 10 recommendations.

Coca-Cola Jumps on the Captive Bandwagon

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One of the world’s largest beverage companies has successfully embraced the somewhat modern practice of funding employee benefits through captive utilization.

Coca-Cola recently began reinsuring some of its international pension liabilities through its Dublin-based captive, Coca-Cola Reinsurance Services Ltd. The captive reinsures about 0 million in annuities written by insurers for benefits provided to enrollees in three Coca-Cola pension plans in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

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After years of operating their own captive, Coca-Cola Reinsurance Services Ltd.

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, to fund a portion of their employee benefits, the beverage giant will now cover international benefit liabilities through a captive.

Coca-Cola had been handling “quite significant” property/casualty risks in its captives for “quite some time,” said Stacy Apter, senior global benefits consultant with Coca-Cola and a panelist at the conference. “Why would we not be taking advantage of the same efficiencies on the employee benefits side when they are more predictable risks?

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”

Apter stated that medical coverage, as an example, is similar to a cash flow operation, in that it is not difficult to predict yearly costs. It seems that employee benefit captives would be a good move most sizable companies, though only a handful have fully embraced it.

A few online resources for learning more about the world of employee benefit captives:

  • Captive.com — “Using Captives for Employee Benefits” covers why employers are using their captive for employee benefits, who has done it so far, how existing transactions have been structured and the primary issues that employers need to evaluate.
  • TowersPerrin.com — “Employee Benefits: Captive Manager’s Key Roles” explores the importance of having the right external partners when choosing a captive and how to ensure appropriate coordination among the internal and external parties involved.
  • Aon.com — “Employee Benefit Captives: Their Role in Managing Enterprise Risk” is a concise reference that can serve as a reference for further examination of the business issues involved in the placement of employee benefits risks in captive insurers.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire: 100 Years Later

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100 years ago today, a fire killed 146 factory workers in an event that would be called the deadliest workplace disaster in New York City’s history up until the September 11th terrorist attacks.

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The Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire occurred on March 25, 1911 when a lit cigarette or match (still unclear which) ignited a fire on the 8th floor, which quickly spread to the floors above.

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In all, 146 people died, mostly from jumping to their death from the 8th, 9th or 10th floors of the building as some exits were locked to prevent theft and fire escapes proved broken and useless. Through this tragic event, working conditions in the city’s sweatshops improved and garment workers gained support for unionization. The Triangle Shirtwaist fire “was the major impetus that led to developing occupational health and safety measures, fire prevention efforts and the state-based workers compensation system.”

Only months after the horrific fire, the American Society of Safety Engineers was formed and today, its 32,000 members who manage, supervise and consult on safety, health, and environmental issues in industry, insurance, government and education.

It was “watching those women and children, some of them actually holding hands as they jumped from the building from the ninth floor, knowing they were going to die, but preferring not to burn” that led to creation of workplace safety laws, said Mark Oldham, Richmond, Va.-based executive consultant, risk services department, for Allianz S.E.’s Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co.

A number of publications have run pieces remembering the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire.

Here are a few of the best:

Firefighters battle the blaze at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in downtown Manhattan. 146 people, mostly young female immigrants, lost their lives.

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Water Risk in the Middle East

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Water scarcity has become a hot topic within the last few years (we ran a feature on the the risk of water scarcity and its effect on businesses in our June 2009 issue). That risk, however, is far greater in certain areas of the world than others. On March 22nd, Maplecroft warned that Middle East and North African (MENA) countries top the list for extreme water security risks, which could lead to further increases in global oil prices and heightened political tensions in the future.

Maplecroft rated 18 countries at “extreme risk” with 15 of those located in the MENA region. Of the 12 organizations of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), six are rated as “high risk.”

“Water security has the potential to compound the already fragile state of societal affairs in some countries,” says Professor Alyson Warhurst, CEO of Maplecroft. “For example, in Egypt water security may intensify the on-going civil tensions. In turn it is not unrelated to food security, which leads to cost of living protests and in turn violent oppression in less democratic societies.”

The report states that technological innovations, such as the desalination of salt water, may alleviate some of these risks. Businesses that require intensive water use (food and beverage, semiconductor manufacturing, etc.) will also need to consider their impacts and analyze options for lessening their reliance on water, especially in regions already experiencing shortages.