6. Hub disclosed data breach, faced lawsuits

Companies of all kinds have been hit by data breaches over the past few years, including several in the insurance sector.

This year, Hub International Ltd. became the latest well-known industry company to disclose that its systems had been breached, and shortly after it started notifying potentially affected parties, lawsuits against the brokerage followed.

Hub announced in August that it was hit by a data breach in late 2022 and that it became aware of the problem on Jan. 17. The company said it immediately isolated the affected systems and launched a forensic investigation. It began notifying affected individuals and companies after it completed its initial data review in July.

The story about the breach was the sixth-most-read risk management-related story on Business Insurance’s website in 2023.

A few weeks after the disclosure, Hub was hit by several class-action lawsuits, which were later consolidated, alleging it failed to safeguard the personal data, including Social Security numbers, financial account information and driver’s license numbers of hundreds of thousands of individuals, and noting that it took seven months to send notice letters.

The legal action remains pending in federal court.

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