Technology within the health-care industry is changing rapidly. With the expansion of electronic information comes the risk of loss. This risk is heightened in the health-care industry because recent regulatory changes have expanded the responsibility of health-care organizations and their business associates to protect health information. Unfortunately, traditional insurance policies do not always provide the necessary coverage, and health-care organizations and their business associates should consider purchasing cyberrisk or specialty policies to protect themselves.
Health care is now ranked among the highest industries to be affected by or at risk of data breaches, comprising more than 36 percent of all data breaches (Symantec Corp., Internet Security Threat Report 2013). The average cost per record of a health-care data breach in 2011 was $240, which is 24 percent higher than the cost per record of the average data breach (Ponemon Institute, 2011 Cost of Data Breach Study United States, March 2012).
