Blog von Priority Insurance LLC

Does your small SC business need cyber liability insurance? Learn why hackers target small businesses and how Priority Insurance can help protect you.

Independent since 2011 · Large Carrier Partner Network · CLU · ChFC · SC · NC · GA

I'm going to start this one with a story I'd rather not have to tell, because it happened to me — right here in my own agency. I had an administrator on my team who had access to all of our business banking and a lot of sensitive information. One day a notice popped up on her email that looked like it came from Microsoft, asking her to re-enter her password to log back in. She did what any of us might do in a busy moment. It wasn't Microsoft. It was cyber fraud, and that one password was all it took. From there, the criminals got into our system. They stole her bank account information, redirected her direct deposit to a fraudulent account, and took two of her paychecks before we caught it. We were lucky in one important way: our client files weren't touched. But because an intruder had been inside a system that held personal information, South Carolina law kicked in and required us to follow a specific protocol to protect everyone involved. Handling that the right way — through a cyber law firm, with all the steps the state requires — cost more than $50,000. I didn't pay that out of my own pocket, because I carry Cyber Liability insurance and it covered the response. Without it, that would have been a $50,000-plus bill landing on my desk with no warning. That's why I'm writing this to my clients. This really happened, and it happened to me. Here's what every Upstate business owner needs to understand about it.

Independent since 2011 · Large Carrier Partner Network · CLU · ChFC · SC · NC · GA

Most of the insurance I write is about protecting things — a house over in Cleveland Park, a work truck, a small business off Woodruff Road. Life insurance is different. It's the one policy that isn't really for you. It's for the people who depend on you, on the day you're no longer there to provide for them. In the years I've spent serving families across Greenville, Greer, Simpsonville, and the rest of the Upstate, I've learned that this is the coverage people put off the longest — and the one their families are most grateful someone talked them into.  So let me talk you into thinking about it clearly. Not with fear, and not with a sales pitch — just with the plain math of what your family would actually face.

Every August, I watch families all over the Upstate pack up the car and drop a son or daughter off at college — Furman here in Greenville, Bob Jones, North Greenville University up in Tigerville, USC Upstate over in Spartanburg, or Clemson just down the road. It's a proud week. It's also the week that, a few days later, brings the same phone call to my office: "Mark, somebody broke into my daughter's apartment and took her laptop and her bike — are we covered for that?" The honest answer depends on a decision most families never realize they needed to make before move-in day. So let me walk you through it, because renters insurance for a college student is one of the least expensive and most overlooked protections I write.

General liability pays first, umbrella covers the rest. See how these SC business insurance policies work together to protect you from big claims.

The Priority Insurance office in Greenville, SC — owner Mark Turley protects his own building with the same Business Owners Policy coverage he recommends to Upstate businesses.