Long gone are the days when business owners only needed to worry about things like slips and falls when considering their liability risk.
Nowadays with companies relying heavily on digital tools to manage their day-to-day operations, risk exposure has evolved to include so much more.
“Cybercrime exposure is 100% real and it’s even MORE important these days for small businesses to partner with Managed IT Service Providers to monitor their systems, apply patches, protect against ransomware, ensure backups are running successfully and more.”
– Matthew, Titan Microsystems
Let’s review some ways Ontario small business owners are working to avoid a liability insurance claim while keeping their customers and themselves better protected in the digital world.
PASSWORD PROTECTING THEIR WIFI
Even if you run a coffee shop or a motel where you’re expected to provide Wi-Fi to your customers, you should still keep your primary business Wi-Fi secure and for internal use only.
Why?
When someone has access to your Wi-Fi password they can use your internet connection for anything they want.
This can range from the annoying hassle (and potentially costly, depending on how your internet package pricing is structured) of someone slowing down your connection speed by streaming videos to the more serious problem of them using the connection to perform illegal activities or even hack your other devices connected to the same Wi-Fi network.
The solution? Set up a guest network.
This still allows your business to provide Wi-Fi to patrons without nearly as much risk.
If you’re not a business that benefits from offering customers access to Wi-Fi, then perhaps do yourself a favour and avoid doing so to keep your business more secure.
USING A VPN
WHAT IS A VPN?
A virtual private network (VPN) encrypts your internet connection and keeps you hidden while you search, browse, bank and shop online.
WHY USE A VPN?
Since a VPN is designed to hide your online activity, it can help guard you against hackers and snoops on public networks. A VPN can also help protect your privacy by safeguarding personal data.
VPN FOR BUSINESSES
The benefits of a VPN for personal use are obvious and for small business owners, they can be even more important.
Business owners use VPNs to help their employees securely access internal applications while working remotely (which also helps protect customer data) and to create a single secure network between several office locations.
DEACTIVATING ONLINE COMMENTS
Canadian courts are seemingly more willing to consider businesses liable for things others post on their company website.
With that in mind, unless active online dialogue is integral to the service you provide, turning off the ability for others to post to your company’s digital platforms (website, blog, social channels) is often the right call.
BACKING UP DATA
Backing up your family’s pictures and videos? Great idea. Backing up your businesses’ important customer data? Crucial and necessary.
What happens if your company’s server or computers crash and the data stored on them is not accessible anywhere else?
Unless it can somehow be restored (which may or may not be possible depending on the nature of the crash), then the data could be lost forever.
The cost of an external hard drive that runs routine backups of your computer and/or an online data backup and recovery service pales in comparison to the cost of losing all of your and your customers’ information.
“The need for redundant data backup is important for our business. We host many of our clients’ websites and databases so we have several layers of data backup in place. Data is stored both remotely and locally on separate systems and backed up weekly in both places.”
– Myles Calvert, Tenpine Web Development
BACKING UP POWER
You may not be a hospital where an interrupted power supply is a matter of life or death, but you may run a company where there can still be major consequences.
Working on a large file that wasn’t automatically saved when the power went out?
Need to upload documents before a deadline but you can’t get online?
Having a consistent and reliable source of power even when the power is out all around you can be very important to the sustainability of your service.
It keeps a hosting server operational and running, an e-commerce website online, your mobile devices charged, a restaurant’s freezers running, a bed and breakfasts heat on and a beauty salon’s hair dryers going.
“An Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) not only delivers power to devices when there’s a power outage but delivers clean power continually. Power problems can easily cause hard-to-troubleshoot issues with equipment that can be eliminated with a filtered power source.”
– Glen Bowes, Bowes IT Solutions
TAKING PAYMENTS ONLINE
Modern digital tools can both increase and decrease the risk to your business.
Take online e-transfer payments for example.
Without the right VPN in place, this could open you up to more risk than you would have otherwise.
On the other hand, as long as it’s done safely and securely, accepting online payments as the primary method of payment from customers can reduce your liability risk by depositing funds directly into your bank account rather than having to hold onto a significant amount of cash which could be lost, damaged or stolen.
Small business owners should implement as many of these digital safeguards to help reduce their liability insurance costs and risks in Ontario.
Erie Mutual Insurance proudly serves the commercial insurance, farm insurance, home insurance and auto insurance needs of members throughout Southern Ontario including Haldimand, Niagara and Hamilton.
Please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions you may have about this or any other topic related to your insurance.
