Medical: Is it BI or BI?

Lynn Sessions will moderate a panel at the 2017 PLUS conference called “Medical: Is it BI or BI?,” which will discuss which policies should respond when multiple lines of insurance are affected at the same time.

Sessions is both an RN and a lawyer who focuses her practice specifically on healthcare law. She previously worked for Texas Children’s Hospital in a variety of different areas, and is now a partner at Baker & Hostetler LLP, and concentrates on healthcare privacy.

The panel will focus specifically on ransom-ware attacks on medical facilities, and how they could potentially cause both business interruption and bodily injury claims. The panel will consist of lawyers and insurance professionals who will discuss cyber liability insurance policies, and whether business interruption and bodily injury would be covered under them, and how to respond if they aren’t covered.

“These are a little bit different, and more novel issues than what we’ve seen on the cyber liability front up until now,” Sessions said. In the past, Sessions said, the main concern with cyber attacks in medical facilities was information breaches, but as cyber attacks have evolved to targeting medical devices, the concern has become patients not being able to receive the care they need, which is where the bodily injury issues come into play.

Sessions believes that a cyber attack on a medical facility is one of the most misunderstood risks for both insurance companies and medical facilities, and because it is misunderstood, becomes a big risk.

Sessions hopes that the panel opens the audience’s eyes to risks that they may not have thought about before, and prompts underwriters and insurers to revisit their cyber liability policies to make sure business interruption and bodily injury is covered. She said that underwriters and brokers would benefit the most from attending the panel, because they’ll hopefully become aware of gaps in cyber liability policies and will start to think about how to create products that meet the needs of healthcare organizations.

“I think as we’re looking at what the emerging risks are in healthcare with a cyber event, that this is something that I think underwriters, and brokers, and frankly insurers are going to have to start thinking about, because the policies- at least in the past- have not been, would not perfectly match up to be able to cover these types of events,” Sessions said.

As insurers begin to consider the risks to healthcare organizations in the event of a cyber attack, Sessions hopes the panel will give them more information about the type of coverage that is needed.

“Hopefully a light bulb will go off that this is a needed response to healthcare organizations with an emerging risk that frankly, all of them are in the process of considering or they’ve actually already faced it,” Sessions said.

Don’t miss this fascinating and informative panel. Register now for the 2017 PLUS Conference, taking place November 1-3 in Atlanta, GA.