NetworkWorld reports on Gartner’s 10 key predictions for information technology. The IT predictions range from events developing in 2008 to events in 2012. From an insurance perspective, perhaps one of the most interesting predictions is that 50 percent of business travelers will no longer travel with their laptops. The prediction suggests that pocket devices designed for web-based applications could make traveling with a laptop no longer necessary for many. If true, it could impact security risk, as many a case of reported Identity Theft exposure is linked to a lost or stolen laptop. If employees no longer travel with their laptop hard drives loaded with the personal info of customers, then maybe that portion of the ID theft risk could be minimized. Of course accessing applications via the Internet could create more opportunities for information to mistakenly be left publicly accessible online as well as create more interesting opportunities for web hacks. Learn more about security exposures on our blog and for examples of web hacks, visit the Web Hacking Incidents Database.

You had better think twice before you send a copy of the great article you just read to your entire staff; you could end up entangled in copyright infringement litigation. A California-based market research company recently settled complaints brought against it by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA). The company had been internally distributing a variety of third-party owned content including market research reports, news articles and other information. Many companies engage in the same practice and as a result, it doesn’t occur to most people to obtain permission or a license to use the content unless it is going to be used externally. Even if the disseminator of the content knew that technically they should obtain permission prior to use, it’s only being distributed internally, so who’s going to know? That position works fairly well, until one of your employees blows the whistle, which is exactly what happened in this case.

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The increasing prevalence of ecommerce, social networks and other technological advances offer unprecedented convenience and access to shopping, paying your bills and interacting with the world. With these benefits, there are dangers in putting personally identifiable information on the internet that go beyond the obvious stolen credit card or social security numbers. Responsible online businesses have lots of tools to help set their customers at ease but there is not always a perfect understanding between the parties regarding what they can and will do with private information.

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Here’s another list of coverage provisions to watch for and closely evaluate.   These particular provisions all relate to Tech Professional liability policies.

1. Copyright and Trademark infringement coverage should apply to covered services for others; marketing and selling of the insured’s own product and content on the insured’s website.  Watch out for language limiting coverage to products and services for others.   

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Contingent Bodily Injury/Property (BI/PD) coverage is usually helpful to media or internet risks featuring how-to or instructional content. Game software developers are also good candidates (if you can get an underwriter to offer it) for BI/PD given the studies showing how violent video games can create violent moods in its users. And the producers of Fear Factor may have had BI/PD coverage to help protect them from the annoyance of a viewer’s lawsuit alleging that a particular rat-eating scene so disturbed him that he had to vomit and ran into a door. But here’s a new BI/PD scenario to consider: The London 2012 Olympics Committee recently had to pull its jazzy new video featuring the Olympics logo over concerns that the imagery (multicolored rippling effects on the logo) could cause epileptic seizures in viewers. These examples not only underscore the need for Contingent BI/PD, but may also illustrate that this type of coverage is worth purchasing even when your client does not have an obvious exposure to it.

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Sometimes the coverage features Insurers promote on their internet and tech forms really are not that special. Here are a few coverage features you mention to us that may not pass the hype test.

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The professional liability exposure of many industries has changed significantly in the past decade or so, and it’s about time the insurance industry catches up.

Many, probably most, companies now have at least some internet/technology risk in association with their business; for some companies it is a substantial exposure. Even companies that aren’t transacting business online, and collecting names and credit card numbers of customers that may be subject to a data breach, can have multiple exposures posed by the internet and their use of technology in the course providing business services to others.

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