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Most professionals understand that work emails can be “discovered” in litigation, meaning that adverse parties can obtain these communications if they are relevant to the dispute. Recently, courts have begun ordering parties to produce other types of communications during discovery, including personal emails and messages. It is important for family businesses and offices to take the proper precautions with their communications to avoid common discovery pitfalls.

Whether caused by family member carelessness, employee error, or the acts of a skilled data thief, everyone has the potential to be the victim of an information breach at any time. Because family offices collect very personal information about very private people, the stakes are high when it comes to protecting their data. Family offices can better protect the families they serve by having a cyber-incident plan in place and following the six recommended steps to prepare for and respond to a system breach.

Each family office has its own unique makeup, circumstances, and risk considerations when it comes to making insurance decisions. Yet there are typical characteristics that surface when looking at the data points of more than 1,000 households. With a high-level snapshot of that data, there are insights you can use when contemplating your overall insurance needs.

Roughly 15% of ultra-high net worth individuals worldwide rely on private aircraft for most personal and business flights. When weighing your options on aircraft ownership, there are pros and cons that should be considered. It's also important to know the key players to help you navigate the selection, purchase, management, financing, and disposition of an aircraft.

The financial damages of cyber crime are projected to reach $6 trillion annually by 2021—more than double those same figures from 2015. That’s why it’s important to not only stay on top of the latest trends in the cyber security industry, but to also stay ahead of them. In this issue of Cyber InFocus, you will learn about the Biometeric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) and iEncrypt.

Whether an employee leaves for another job or because the employer decided it was time for the employee to go, employers typically need to figure out how to replace a departing worker. Sometimes, the break is clean. Other times, it can be complicated. Regardless of the reason or circumstance, now-former employees may have post-employment obligations to the business or organization that employers should immediately consider and, if necessary, act upon.

Ransomware has become prevalent and can cause significant downtime and leaving businesses with no choice but to pay the ransom. The bad actors aren’t just trying to steal personal, identifiable information but are frequently monitoring email correspondence to manipulate invoices and redirect payroll to accounts they control. Employee training and multi-factor authentication are vital to your cyber defense.

Employers of all sizes inadvertently put themselves at risk by not having a policy establishing how long to continue benefits during a leave of absence (LOA). So, before the important questions arise, employers should establish an LOA Policy that considers employee needs, carrier contractual provisions, federal and state benefit regulations, and the employer’s company culture. Having a policy in place and regularly updated will minimize costly risks, as well as create an easier path to communication when employees will need it most.

With the implementation of California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) set to go into effect January 1, 2020, anyone doing businesses with California residents should not only be preparing their digital strategies to comply with the new law, they should also be assessing their risk and reviewing their cyber insurance and adequacy of limits. Why? Now, at $100 minimum per individual incident, a small data breach of 5,000 people equates to $500,000 in damages. Given the minimum statutory damage provision, expect a significant uptick in class action lawsuits following data breaches.