From time to time we have industry experts come on board to guest blog in order to provide our readers with interesting and insightful commentary.  Today’s article is by Larry Niland, LIMRA Senior Regulatory Consultant and former CCO of the John Hancock Financial Network and David Somers II, Esq., LIMRA’s Director of Regulatory Consulting and former IA Regulatory Officer and V.P. at Advest, Inc.

Best Practices and Regulation Roundtable Meeting

Over 261 million data records of U.S. residents have been exposed due to security breaches since January 2005, according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. If you’ve talked to your firm’s Chief Privacy Officer (CPO) lately chances are he or she was not in a good mood. States are passing new regulations at a record pace on how client personal information and other critical data must be protected, controlled, transmitted, encrypted, transported, shredded; and when it is not, how to report the breach to everyone affected, including the regulators.

At a recent LIMRA roundtable meeting in Connecticut of broker-dealer and insurance company CPOs, participants discussed data privacy and security best practices and regulation. The following issues and topics are highlights from the meeting: Continue reading →