Euclid Managers is pleased to expand individual points-of-view on our blog with the following article contributed by a guest, David Lewison, vice president/broker, Colemont Insurance Brokers.  If you would like to consider being a guest writer on our blog, contact Marcia.

It is time once again to dispel any myths that your personal activities are completely safe from monitoring by your employer.  While many people are focusing on the privacy of their identity, social security number and credit card numbers, your privacy rights are very limited when it comes to your employer’s interests.  As you will see, many people wrongly assume that their communications between friends cannot be monitored by their employers. 

Click to read more ...

The New York Times recently reported on a new study of civil lawsuits.  The study included about 2,000 cases that went to trial between 2002 and 2005 and the findings are scheduled for publication in the September issue of the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies.  The study’s focus included information about whether or not it was financially better for plaintiffs and defendants to settle or proceed to trial. Here are a few of the study findings:

Click to read more ...

Eleven people have been charged with hacking TJX and other major retailers. Three of the defendants are from Miami, the location of 1 is unknown and the rest are based outside the U.S. in locations including the Ukraine, Estonia, China and Belarus. The Department of Justice alleges that the defendants gathered the credit/debit card info by wardriving, which involves driving around with a laptop, antenna and wireless LAN adapter in order to identify and exploit wireless networks that have ranges outside of buildings. One of the potential protections companies can employ to combat wardriving is the WPA encryption standard. As previously reported, TJX was accused of not updating its systems appropriately to meet current standards. Further, a scan of 800 retailers conducted in New York earlier this year by AirDefense found that one-third of those retailers had no security on their wireless networks and another third had weak encryption, such as the flawed protocol TJX was accused of using.

The Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) has published its 5^th annual Aftermath study regarding the effects of identity theft on individuals. Here are a few of the details from the study. Over a five year period, the ITRC reports that 1/3 of identity thefts were perpetrated by someone known to the victim. The next largest number of thefts arose from lost or stolen wallets or PDAs. The cost to a victim of identity theft in 2007 averaged approximately $500 in out-of-pocket expenses for an existing account. If a new account was set up, the average out-of-pocket expenses rose to nearly $1,900. This is a rise of about $500 per victim since 2006. Additionally, only 10 percent of those surveyed discovered they had been a victim of identity theft after being notified by a business.

Click to read more ...

The 2008 State Liability Systems Ranking Study conducted for the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform has been released. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the fairness and reasonableness of the U.S. tort liability system. The states ranking the best were Delaware, Nebraska and Maine. Some of the worst-ranked states include West Virginia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Illinois. Additionally, Los Angeles-California and Cook County, Chicago-Illinois were identified as the worst jurisdictions. The overall rating of the system measured primarily fair/poor but the margin was not vast as 41% of those polled ranked the state court liability system in America as only fair or poor and 55% ranked it as excellent or pretty good. The overall rating for 2008 is very similar to the findings in the 2007 study. Both 2007 and 2008 are markedly better than the overall rating in 2006. For more about earlier studies and worst courtroom data, see our previous posts.