Archives for October 2016

Sometimes, as a broker, I get asked why a small company needs to spend its hard earned money on Insurance, when it needs every cent to survive.

To which I always wonder – “can you survive without it?”

The Catering company here were working in the British Museum. A member of the waiting staff bumped their head getting up and knocked off the thumb of an almost 2000 year old statue.

Now a cleaning company in Auckland, or a gardening outfit in Whangarei might not be working in close proximity to such valuable heritage items. But a nudge to an expensive Smart TV, or a Ride On Mower going into a Ranch Slider – stuff happens.

And payouts, or loss of contracts – as happened to the caterers in the story – can hurt a lot more than the few hundred bucks it generally costs a small business to obtain cover.

If a Director or Employee does the damage and are proved liable, the policy will pay. But sometimes it’s another worker; just be aware not all Insurers extend their cover to contractors. So the Employer is reliant on the Contractor having a current Liability policy of their own – adding extra risk.

Most policies also exclude the item being worked on – not handy if you’re a kitchen builder and you smash an expensive worktop whilst installing it. Policies can be often extended to cover this, but you need to make sure they are.

To get a Quote from RDi, click the button and see how painless we’ve made the process.

The Herald reports:

When catering a prestigious event, any waiter may fear clumsily dropping a plate or spilling a drink on an eminent guest.

Few will suffer the indignity of accidentally knocking a thumb off a priceless Roman statue with their head.

The British Museum has admitted to an “unfortunate incident” which saw the thumb of the famous Townley Venus knocked clean off by a member of catering staff.

The caterer, who worked for an external company not regularly used by the Museum, had bent down underneath it and bumped into the marble as they got up again.

A spokesman for the museum said it had taken the incident “seriously”, with the sculpture “fully restored” quietly by conservators.

The thumb was … knocked off during a corporate party at the museum, which rents its gallery spaces out regularly for events.

It is understood that caterers were preparing for the evening in the Ancient Greek and Roman galleries when a member of staff knelt underneath the Townley Venus.

On rising, the caterer’s head hit the protruding marble thumb with such force it knocked it off.

The statue, described by The Art Newspaper as “one of the British Museum’s most important Roman sculptures”, dates from the first or second centuries AD and is a marble copy of a fourth century BC Greek Venus.

 

It is understood the catering company were new to the museum, and have not been invited back.

A spokesman said: “This was an unfortunate incident. The preservation of the collection is of fundamental importance.

“We have taken the incident seriously and have retrained all individuals responsible for events.”

See the full Herald article here

Today a staffer at Mediaworks has been sentenced for defrauding the company of nearly half a million dollars.

Employee fraud is a serious matter, and can hit large and small companies alike, even when there are safeguards in place. For small businesses in particular the fraud may not make the headlines, but can be tip them over the edge.

As a broker I have seen several situations over the years that have hurt companies. A well known franchise, who believed themselves secure, lost $80,000. A large electronic repair service $75,000.

Trust is often the key. When an individual is in a position of trust within a company, scrutiny becomes laxer and the incidence of fraud is hard to pick up for long periods.

It can be fuelled by lifestyle, or a secret addiction, like gambling.  The pressing needs of a loved one, perhaps in the form of illness can also push individuals to begin the deception. If an initial attempt goes undetected, it regularises the behaviour, which continues and grows.

Businesses need to vigilant. According to American CPA’s Gross Mendelsohn, watch for some telltale signs:

• Reluctance to take anything but the shortest breaks.
• Spending on items incongruous with their payscale.
• Frequent Overtime work or staying late in the office
• Regularly taking work home

But that can sometimes not be enough.

Fidelity Insurance, sometimes called Employee Fraud or Crime cover, is there to assist when a hidden case is eventually discovered. Most modern policies will be triggered as long as a loss to the company can be shown – which is far easier to do than the older style of policy, which required a successful prosecution before a payout could be made.

A good Management Liability suite of covers should include a Fidelity cover.

To  make sure your business is covering all its bases, talk to RDi Insurance for a full review of your requirements.

The NZ Herald is reporting that

A Former MediaWorks staffer who misused company credit cards and created fictitious invoices to the tune of more than $450,000 has been sent to prison for three years.

Rebecca Maree Boyce, 28, of Onehunga, appeared in the Auckland District Court this afternoon to be sentenced on 25 charges covering just over two years of her employment with the media company from 2013.

The bulk of allegedly stolen cash came from her dishonestly using 69 invoices from another company, which netted her $233,967 from the end of 2013 to mid-2015.

During that time she is also accused of using 34 invoices from a different entity which scored her $122,302.

Her charges include five counts of forgery, five of using a false document and 15 of dishonestly using a document.

According to court documents, the woman used the money to splurge on concert tickets, high-end designer clothing and general household items.

Judge Taumanu said Boyce ran eight “distinct” schemes over the period of her offending which involved sophisticated invoicing arrangements.

One of the schemes involved putting her bank details in the place of another company’s and invoicing MediaWorks.

See the full story here nzherald

The Employment Laws and Tribunal process in New Zealand is often fraught for Employers and Employees alike.

In some instances, the reasons for dismissal are rejected by the ERA – in others the way the process was conducted has lead to awards and compensation.

In a recent case, the tribunal hearing has allowed secret recordings to be used as evidence of malpractice and bullying.

For Kiwi businesses, which typically tend to be Small to Medium, personalities, poor or non existent policies around workplace standards and simple lack of knowledge of all the rules can lead to very difficult cases which go to the ERA.

Whilst business (and Associations) need to make every effort to be compliant, they can be benefitted by a good Employment Dispute Insurance cover, which can provide funds for representation, preparation and time loss costs and any awards made against an employer.

For a confidential discussion around your business needs, contact RDi on 094202798

The Herald reporting on case at the weekend says:

The Employment Relations Authority has agreed to accept secret recordings of work colleagues as evidence in a Dispute Tribunal case.
A Christchurch hairdresser  covertly recorded a private conversation between her workmates at Synergy Hair in Riccarton late last year,saying it was to prove she was the subject of gossip and bullying in the workplace.
The Employment Relations Authority recently deemed the recording admissible – despite the fact no party to the conversation knew they were being recorded, overturning previous rulings that at least one person had to be aware the conversation was being recorded for a recording to be admissible.

In its decision the ERA acknowledged the decision was unusual: “Recording others secretly when the person recording is not participating in a meeting or conversation with them is generally not admissible.”
She also recorded a meeting between herself and salon owner Kelvyn Glading where she was given a letter outlining a disciplinary process and suspension was discussed. This recording was made without Glading’s knowledge but was also admissible.

Some lawyers say the case sets a worrying precedent and cautioned bosses to cement strict policies to protect privacy and water-cooler conversations.
Lawyers from Simpson Grierson said accepting a recording where no party was aware they were being recorded set a worrying precedent and warned employers of the need to protect themselves and their employees by having clear policies around filming and recording in the workplace.
Employers could pre-empt the risk of secret recordings during disciplinary processes by recording the meetings themselves and asking whether anyone wished to record the meeting.
“Employers and employees need to be careful and precise with what they say … and they need to be aware other employees may be recording them.”
“Our advice is to put clear policies in place and to make clear making recordings in the workplace is not acceptable behaviour.”

A spokesperson for the Employment Relations Authority spokesperson said evidence was accessed on a case by case basis.
“There is no necessary flow on from one case to another.”
The case Firman v Insyn Ltd (trading as Synergy Hair) has been heard by the ERA but the decision has not been released.

The full Herald story can be found here

There’s been some better news for SME recently in that Anti Virus researchers have been able to crack the codes of 2 Ransomware attackers and give vulnerable Business owners repossession of their records and files.

But they also warn that the race is never won, and new variants and upgraded malware appear frequently.

Insurance has responded to the current and future threats by launching Cyber Crime Insurance – for more details on these products contact RDi for a confidential discussion.

Website CSO http://www.cso.com.au, a Resource for Data Security executives reports:

Security researchers have released tools this week that could help users recover files encrypted by two relatively new ransomware threats: Bart and PowerWare.

PowerWare, also known as PoshCoder, was first spotted in March, when it was used in attacks against healthcare organizations.

Researchers from security firm Palo Alto Networks have recently found a new version of this threat that imitates a sophisticated and widespread ransomware program called Locky. It uses the extension .locky for encrypted files and also displays the same ransom note used by the real Locky ransomware.

Luckily, PowerWare is nowhere near as strong as the ransomware programs it impersonates, which allowed the Palo Alto researchers to create a decryption tool that should work at least for this latest variant.

Also this week, researchers from antivirus firm AVG managed to crack another ransomware program called Bart that first appeared in June. This threat is notable because it locks files inside password-protected ZIP archives instead of using sophisticated encryption algorithms.

Bart infections are easy to identify because the affected files will have the extension .bart.zip appended to their original name and extension — for example document.docx will become document.docx.bart.zip.

AVG researchers have figured out a way to guess the key using brute-force methods. Their Bart decryption tool requires the user to have at least one unaffected copy of a file that has been encrypted.

The program compares the original version of the file with the archived and password-protected version and then proceeds to guess the password. But they warn that the process can take up to several days.

While it’s great that security researchers sometimes find implementation flaws in ransomware programs and manage to create free decryption tools, malware authors are usually quick to fix their errors. A tool that works for one variant of a particular ransomware program might not work for the next one. Preventative measures, coupled with Insurance should the worst occur, are the best method.

For the original article, and links to the decryption tools click here

For more on preventative measures click the link.