After an 18 month-long evaluation by world-class information security experts, Lloyd’s of London underwrote the InterComputer InterOperating System and began offering groundbreaking insurance coverage for its users. This coverage applies to both external and internal loss sources, including hacks, viruses, malicious code insertion, and Internet crime of any kind. Coverage includes full transaction face value, business interruption, and third party liability loss recovery. Leading financial services industry groups have long agreed that third party liability issues have been a major barrier to global e-commerce growth. The entire transaction, from end user to end user, is covered. To our knowledge, no other Internet transaction system has ever been comprehensively insured by any insurance carrier.

Many vendors will “assure” you that their messaging or transaction system is “secure” and recite a laundry list of technologies intended to bolster that image. What they really wish they could tell you is that their solution is insured. The difference between “assured” and “insured” can have an enormous effect on your company’s bottom line.

Suppose you adopt an electronic messaging/transaction system to transfer information and money between your company and your suppliers/customers. Now suppose something goes wrong with one of your transactions–confidential information subject to regulatory requirements is lost or stolen, which may result in legal action, fines, or a public relations nightmare that costs you business. A large payment is accidentally, intentionally, or even criminally diverted and the money is lost. What do you do now?

If you go to the vendor who “assured” you that his system was “secure,” what do you think you will get? A heartfelt apology, if you are lucky. That’s what Google offered its customers when a software bug exposed their confidential documents on-line. What is the point of trying to manage risk in your business if there is no financial backstop for your efforts?

If, on the other hand, your system vendor is insured and something goes wrong, you will get compensation for your losses. If that vendor is InterComputer Corporation, your compensation will include the full financial face value of any transaction loss, lost business resulting from the incident, AND compensation for any third party liability losses. Transaction insurance from InterComputer Corporation is the difference between a heartfelt apology and real risk management.

There are many tech vendors touting products that nibble at the edges of InterComputer software’s capabilities. However, it is impossible for any client organization to safely interoperate by relying on technologies acquired from multiple sources and bolted together; there are simply too many cracks and holes in such an approach. Those weaknesses introduce risks throughout the business domain, risks that cannot be evaluated, quantified and underwritten. Achieving that goal can only be accomplished by applying a single-source solution, utilizing a risk-evaluated methodology, built in a controlled environment to quality standards that can then deliver insurable security throughout the system.

When it comes to real risk management, INSURANCE IS EVERYTHING.