Document Security in Insurance: Safeguarding Your Data

The insurance industry is often the target of data breaches. Many insurance companies, from life insurance provider Fidelity Investments Life Insurance Co to health insurance giant UnitedHealth, have faced expensive and damaging data breaches. After all, insurance companies hold millions of people’s personal and financial data. Document security is essential for protecting the sensitive information of customers and employees.

Many insurers rely on documents to collect customer data, process claims, underwrite policies, and facilitate internal communications. A file containing sensitive data falling into the wrong hands can be disastrous.

This article emphasizes the importance of document security, addresses the common challenges, and shares the best practices insurers can use to enhance it.

Why Document Security is Essential in Insurance

There were over 16,000 security incidents and over 5,000 confirmed data breaches in 2023, according to the Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report. Let these numbers sink in!

Cyber threats are only increasing year over year, and becoming more penetrative. In other words, beefing up digital security isn’t a choice but a necessity.

But for insurers, there’s more at stake with data breaches. Securing insurance documents is critical for several reasons:

Protecting Sensitive Information

Insurance documents contain personally identifiable information (PII) of people. Insurers often collect information through paper or digital forms. They also collect copies of customer’s identity documents, tax returns, pay stubs, deeds, and/or appraisals as part of the application for various products. Health insurers have medical records of patients. All these documents are susceptible to data breaches.

In addition, insurers may also have documents containing customer financial information, such as bank account numbers or credit cards.

A data breach in an insurer’s systems has the potential to leak highly sensitive PII, leading to disastrous consequences on all fronts. This has the potential to result in a fine and the damage to an organization’s reputation, both of which are bad for business.

Regulatory Compliance and Document Security

Insurance companies are required to comply with various regulations, many of which focus on data protection and privacy. These regulations vary by region, coverage, and penalties. If you’re doing business in a place with regulations, you’re required to comply.

Here are the most common regulations for insurers:

• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) – regulates the disclosure of protected health information.
• California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) – regulates the collection, use, and disclosure of customer information in California.
• Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) – requires financial institutes, including insurance providers, to protect non-public information of customers.
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – requires consumer data protection in Europe.

Compromised document security can result in non-compliance with these regulations. That, in turn, can lead to legal ramifications, including hefty fines. Anthem, a large health insurance company, paid $115 million in 2015 to settle a data breach case. In 2023, Swedish authorities fined an insurance company SEK 35 million ($3.4 million) for lax security and compromised personal data.

Customer Trust and Business Continuity

Insurance companies handle their customers’ sensitive and private information. If such data is leaked, customers may lose faith in the company and never return. This can also discourage potential customers from buying policies and interacting with the business in any form.

A data breach that compromises sensitive documents could threaten the very existence of the insurance business.

Document security measures can help to minimize the ensuing damage and enable seamless business continuity. With proper backups, employees and customers can continue to access the documents even after a data breach or ransomware attack.

Common Document Security Challenges in Insurance

Document security challenges include the usual suspects like cyber threats, regulations, and technological vulnerabilities. However, there are also challenges with management.

Let’s explore each in more detail:

Data Breaches and Cyber Threats

Cybercriminals increasingly target insurance companies due to the valuable personal and financial data they hold. Some of the most common cyber threats include:

• Phishing attacks
• Malware and viruses
• Ransomware
• Unauthorized access

These threats need to be addressed as part of the more significant data security policy with specific emphasis on documents. Dedicated cyber security suites with 24/7 traffic and access monitoring may help counter these known threats. Besides that, any tools used for accessing and modifying documents should have appropriate security features, like encryption, password/key protection, role-based access, etc.

Handling Legacy Systems and Paper-Based Workflows

Securing legacy systems and transitioning from paper-based documents to digital formats pose significant challenges. These systems often lack modern security features. Similarly, manual handling of paper documents can lead to data leaks and unauthorized access. For instance, a file may get lost or stolen from the offices.

Modernizing internal systems and embracing digitisation is easy. Gradually upgrade legacy systems or use tools to convert documents from those systems into modern, more secure formats. Similarly, paper documents can be digitized with capturing tools and stored in safe repositories.

Ensuring Regulatory Compliance

Compliance and document security are closely intertwined in the insurance industry. That said, keeping up with the constantly evolving regulatory landscape is challenging for insurance companies. At the same time, non-compliance with regulations can result in hefty fines and reputational damage.

Maintaining secure audit trails and records is essential for demonstrating compliance and responding to inquiries. Dedicated resources to ensuring compliance and staying on top of any regulation updates.

User Access and Authorization

Inadequate control over who can access and modify documents can increase the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches. Granting excessive access to sensitive data can lead to misuse and data leaks.

It’s highly recommended to implement role-based security, which limits access to sensitive files to only those who need it for their jobs. Roles may be assigned based on the role and hierarchy in the department or organization. The role can be confirmed by requiring a login to access a document.

Insider Threats

Insider threats, such as employees or contractors misusing or leaking information, pose significant risks to document security in the insurance industry. Access controls can help prevent insider threats by ensuring that only authorized personnel can access and modify sensitive documents.

Data Integrity and Authenticity

Ensuring documents remain unaltered throughout their lifecycle and verifying their authenticity is crucial for maintaining data integrity and preventing fraud. This is especially important in multi-party environments. For instance, health insurance companies may send and receive documents from healthcare providers.

Version control and digital signatures should be used to authenticate information contained in documents. Document management tools that save different versions of documents help increase accountability, especially for collaborative documents.

Mobile and Remote Access Risks

Securing documents accessed via mobile devices or remote workers is essential to prevent data breaches. Remote work arrangements, including the use of unsecured networks and devices, can introduce new security risks.

This challenge can be addressed with virtual private networks, secure login, and encrypted transfer of files. For instance, MST eViewer allows remote workers to securely view documents on their devices and leaves no document artifacts on their device once they’ve closed the document window.

Third-Party Vendor Risks

Sharing sensitive documents with third-party service providers can expose them to additional risks. If using such vendors, redact any PII or sensitive data that are not relevant to the vendor. Alternatively, partner only with trustable vendors with similar security practices and values.

Document Lifecycle Vulnerabilities

Documents may end up in the wrong hands after they’ve been used. Protecting documents during archiving and disposal is crucial to preventing unauthorized access. Implementing secure destruction practices for sensitive information is also essential to preventing data breaches.

Best Practices for Securing Insurance Documents

Here are some best practices to follow to strengthen document security in insurance:

• Data Encryption and Secure Storage: Utilize encryption on sensitive documents in transit and at rest. Similarly, use secure, cloud-based storage solutions with solid encryption. MST eViewer offers end-to-end encryption when transmitting document data between the server and the workstation, so they don’t get compromised in transit.
• Role-Based Access Controls: Define and implement role-based access to ensure that only authorized personnel can access sensitive documents. Limit access based on roles and responsibilities to minimize risks. Furthermore, continuously review and update roles and responsibilities.
• Digital Signatures, Certificates, and Audit Trails: Use digital signatures and digital certificates ensures document authenticity and integrity. For instance, requiring users to sign documents upon review or modification, or attaching digital certificates to a document to ensure no modifications have occurred since the last review. Utilize audit trails for full visibility and tracking of document interactions. This is a standard feature on eViewer that helps increase accountability.
• Regular Security Audits and Risk Assessments: Conduct periodic audits to identify vulnerabilities in document security. Review overall security policies as well as document-specific policies, workflows, tools, and practices. Implement risk management practices to address both known and emerging threats.
• Secure Document Conversion and Automation: When working with different file formats, take advantage of automated file conversion. However, prioritize security in this workflow and opt only for trusted conversion tools that do not compromise security. MST’s universal document conversion tool keeps files and annotations secure.

How MST Solutions Optimize Document Security in Insurance

MST’s solutions, eViewer and MST Batch Converter, are designed with a document security first approach. Its features complement an insurer’s document security measures and policy.

The eViewer is a secure document viewing and manipulation tool that uses end-to-end encryption. It complies with the most common regulations, such as HIPAA, CCPA, and GDPR.

Many of the features are also designed to help implement foolproof document security. For instance, admins can set roles for document view, edit, and share rights. If a document needs to be shared with an external party, any PII can be automatically redacted using MST’s AI-powered auto-redaction. It detects which columns or fields have sensitive information and blanks them out automatically, saving time.

The MST Batch Converter helps convert large batches of documents from one format to another, prioritizing their security throughout this operation.

Lastly, all MST solutions are ready to be integrated with other systems in your company’s tech stack. This also includes legacy systems that use old document formats that are no longer accepted by modern software.

While not directly a document security suite, MST offers many capabilities that can help insurers enhance the security and integrity of their documents containing critical information.

Case Studies

Blue Cross Blue Shield, a well-known health insurance provider in the US, needed a document conversion tool to convert legacy files in proprietary formats.

The company turned to MST’s Batch Converter, which not only seamlessly converts documents in batches at once but also ensures compliance by retaining crucial metadata.

Similarly, another insurance brokerage firm, AON, used the Batch Converter and integrated it with its legacy IBM CM8 system. The company was concerned about preserving metadata and achieved that with MST’s solution.

Conclusion

Securing insurance documents is essential for the very survival of any insurer, as threats are everywhere. However, these threats can be mitigated with the right solutions and best security practices.

MST’s solutions allow insurance companies to use their documents without worrying about compromising sensitive information. Users can view, manipulate, and convert documents of over 100 formats quickly and securely.

Contact MST to learn more!