Rodney District Insurance Ltd

  • Home
  • About Us
  • The Covers
    • Business
    • Tradesmen
    • Professionals
    • Cars
    • Home and Contents
    • Travel
  • Get a Quote
  • Blog
  • Contact Us
You are here: Home / 2016 / Archives for November 2016

Archives for November 2016

November 30, 2016 by markkreling

Spear Phishing – Cyber Crime’s New Wave

ransomware-kavThis afternoon they tried to Spear me.

A phone call from an Australian number. A polite and articulate young man named Jared on the line, from Market Solutions.

I had – supposedly – participated in an online survey earlier this year, and did I want to receive “a one – off email with some investment opportunities” that I’d said I’d be interested in?

This is not the old Nigerian Prince scam, or the Ukranian girlfriend, the Google lottery draw or a long lost, deceased, possible relative with 12 Million US in the bank that can be ours, or partly ours.

It’s far more sophisticated.

This is a very polite and professional sounding Aussie with Investment Opportunities that I might actually be interested in, even if I can’t remember the exact survey I supposedly filled in. The sounds of a busy office in the background.

The point of the phone call is to make you expect the email, and to open the attachment because you know it’s coming.

And they know about you. They can tune their “sales pitch” to your interests and business profile – after all, they’ve got access to LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter, your Company Website, and all the other places you feature.

If you have a receptionist, colleague or staff member they can call they may ask how best to contact you, get your email address, and ask that person to let you know an email is coming your way.

Once the firewall is circumnavigated, you effectively do their work for them, by opening an innocuous looking pdf or word attachment and downloading Ransomware or other Malware onto your own system – and through the Cloud or your company network this can spread to every device, locking down or looking into all your valuable systems and data.

Then comes the demand for payment to unlock it, which will increase in cost the longer you delay.

If you need the data, can’t recover it  and don’t have Insurance cover, what else can you do?

Except, like burglary, if you’ve been hit once, you’re far more likely to be attacked again – because the Cyber Criminals will sell your details – as good payers – to others of their ilk. Like a malicious referral programme.

If it’s not ransomware they are distributing, then they are working as the distributors of private information your company holds about clients, employees and your own accounts, invoices and suppliers.

Once they are in, they will work at full speed to get the information to the highest bidder before the breach is discovered.

The Insurance Industry is responding the these new threats by creating a Cyber Crime policy that typically gives access to a range of experts who can unlock data, remove malware, recover and rewrite records and pay for Privacy Act breaches and other costs associated with an attack.

Make sure that you discuss this with your broker; it might be the most valuable talk you can have all year.

 

Footnote:

I Say “No – Thank You.” He rings off. I call the number back and get a disconnected message. This time, I swim clear. But they’re getting cleverer.

Filed Under: Blog, Business

November 24, 2016 by markkreling

Be Taxi Safe

taxi

 

RNZ are reporting that confusion has broken out over what type of insurance Uber drivers need.

The report, aired on their morning report today and can be heard here

The Uber approach, of advising their drivers to only take Third Party only cover, if it is true, raises a lot of questions, for both drivers and their potential passengers.

In the event of a crash, be it fault or non fault, whilst the vehicle is being used for the commercial purpose of a taxi, would a private insurance pay out at all, or would the Insurer look to void the policy? I suspect, in the vast majority of cases, they would avoid the policy – in other words treat it as though it had never been in force.

This means that there would be no insurance cover for third parties – which is exactly what the Passengers of a vehicle are. ACC would still be the first port of call for injury to passengers of course, but no more, so some types of claims, to property and other things would not be covered by the driver’s erstwhile cover.

For drivers too, a third party only cover gives them no chance of claiming for theft or own damage in fault or single vehicle claims – even if the insurer deemed their policy to be in force. This might well spell loss of earnings, and result in significant repair and other costs.

The standard third party liability cover for Motor Insurance in New Zealand generally starts at $5,000,000 and can be as high as $20,000,000, so for the company to boast of it’s $5,000,000 USD contingency is somewhat surprising.

There are also anecdotal incidents of the NZ Police fining drivers without a Passenger endorsement on their Driving Licence  and for their cars not having a CoF – two things that the regulated industry has to have.

As a passenger and potential customer, I would want to know if the ride I am booking is safe, up to standard and covered. And a responsible driver would want the same thing.

 

The RNZ story:

 

One Uber driver says the company only requires drivers to have third party private insurance instead of more expensive commercial insurance, RNZ reports.

Many private insurance policies won’t cover drivers if they are driving for commercial purposes.

NZ Uber Drivers’ Association chairman Ben Wilson says the company is “playing very fast and loose”.

“Ultimately, when the claim is made, the nature of the accident is not going to be available to the insurance company to make their decision.

“I cannot see any other reason why they would even ask us to take out an insurance policy, if the aim wasn’t to make these fraudulent claims.”

The Insurance Council says private policies are unlikely to pay out to Uber drivers.

Uber spokesman Caspar Nixon wouldn’t tell RNZ why the company requires drivers to have third party private car insurance.

However, he says if an insurer turns a driver down, they could claim against Uber’s own $5 million United States-based contingency fund.

Nixon says the company would not encourage a driver to mislead their insurer

 

 

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: insurance, taxi, Taxiinsurance, Uber

November 10, 2016 by markkreling

Pumpkin Patch Collapse May Cost Local Business Millions

ClosingDown-730x338

When a big business goes down, media focuses on shop closures, job losses and customer vouchers.

But the hidden losers are a lot of smaller businesses that supply goods and services to larger corporates.

When it comes to payouts from receiverships, IRD and big Creditors take their cuts first – and Receivers always earn their fees.

That can leave Small Creditors looking at a recovery of a few Cents in the Dollar, after a protracted period.

Trade Credit Insurance can change that. Creditor collapses, Bad Debts, both here and abroad, non payment on invoice terms – all these can be covered.

Trade Credit Insurance also gives lenders more confidence in your business, making them more willing to lend, or impose less rigorous conditions and security requirements on the loan terms.

To see how Trade Credit insurance can free your business, give you the confidence to expand into new markets and protect your balance sheet, contact us here – we will send an expert to talk to you.

 

The Herald reports:

The receivers for struggling children’s clothing chain Pumpkin Patch are continuing to look for a buyer for the business after announcing a bunch of store shutdowns and job cuts last week.

The New Zealand-headquartered children’s clothing specialist was placed into voluntary administration on October 26, with major creditor ANZ appointing KordaMentha as receivers.

Last week, the receivers announced that 27 of the retailer’s Australian stores will be closed, laying off up to 145 staff.

They had earlier announced seven store closures in New Zealand, which would also result in job losses there.

The group is believed to owe between $45-50 million to ANZ alone, with total creditors owed about $80 million.

The company posted an 11 per cent decline in FY16 sales at $212.4 million, with after-tax loss of $9.1 million.

On Monday, the administrators told the creditors’ meeting in Sydney the company’s directors were yet to submit a statement of affairs outlining the current financial situation of the business.

A second creditors’ meeting will be held after November 16, depending on the progress made in the sale process, Mr Hayes said.

 

The full story is here

Filed Under: Blog, Business

November 9, 2016 by markkreling

Employee Defrauds Auckland Airport of $1.8 Million

fraudA woman who defrauded Auckland Airport of $1.8 million has been sent to prison for three years and two months.

As is quite common in these cases, the lady had worked for her employer for a long time – 18 years – and a stressful life situation caused her to start the fraud in 2012.

People in businesses who hold positions of trust, and have financial duties can find it easy to take money fraudulently and hide the losses over a long time frame – often 2 – 3 years.

By putting bank account details into invoices after they’d been approved, duplicating accounts and diverting refund payments into their own accounts they can rack up significant sums.

In small businesses, losses on any scale are hard to counter.

Fidelity Insurance, often called Crime insurance, can prove to be the salvation for business owners who find they’ve suffered in this way.

If you want to know more about Business Insurance that can protect you from a wide range of losses, including fraud,Contact me today

 

The Herald reports

Teremoana Kimiangatau, 54, was sentenced today at the Manukau District Court after earlier pleading guilty on all three charges of “obtaining by deception”, laid by the Serious Fraud Office [SFO].

The former airport accounts clerk, of 18 years, had transferred funds from the company’s bank account to her own account.

She did this by changing the client bank account numbers to her own within the airport’s accounting system.

After the offending was uncovered, Kimiangatau repaid all of the money except for a shortfall of about $200,000.

Today, Crown prosecutor Gareth Kayes submitted a starting point of six to seven years imprisonment was appropriate with discounts given for the mitigating factors of the voluntary repayment, along with her previous good character and evident remorse.

However, it was offending that was premeditated, repetitive over three and a half years, involved an abuse of trust and caused significant loss to Auckland Airport.

Kimiangatau’s lawyer, Peter Winter, said after a long period with the company, the offending began when her family suffered financial blows in 2012.

Her husband, an aircraft engineer tradesman, had his job advertised five times and was forced to reapply for it four times.

This caused the family to suffer depression and stress.

“Inexcusably, she started taking money from the company,” Winter told the court.

Kimiangatau saw how easy the company recovered from losses due to “double-counting” which gave her confidence in her offending, Winter said.

According to the summary of facts, read to the court by Judge John Bergseng, Kimiangatau, who was responsible for arranging payment to Auckland Airport suppliers, on 34 occasions used her specialized knowledge to access the system.

She did this by putting her bank account details into invoices after they’d been approved, duplicating accounts and diverting refund payments into her own account.

This took place over more than three years from May 9 2012 to September 26, 2013 and she used the a home, cars, holidays, repaying debts and other life expenses.

Judge Bergseng said Kimiangatau’s fraud involved a “relatively high degree of sophistication” and the motivated was “lifestyle-related”.

“You were wanting to be in a position whereby you were back in your own home and your were able to use the money to fund your own lifestyle.”

SFO director Julie Read said this morning:

“After many years of honest employment, Mrs Kimiangatau let both herself and her employer down by committing this crime. In a position to see weaknesses in the system, she chose to take advantage of them rather than to see that they were remedied. There is no excuse for that. All employees have a responsibility to ensure that processes are thorough and adhered to.”

The full NZ Herald story can be seen here

Filed Under: Blog, Business

November 6, 2016 by markkreling

Deep One Perfect Morning

e9f4e90f-ecfd-4859-a40f-f7323cc63dda

Shelly Beach, Kaipara Harbour. My office. Enjoy.

To talk to me about your Insurance, contact me here

Filed Under: Blog

Company Profile

I am a Financial Adviser and my Disclosure Information can be viewed here.
Rodney District Insurance Ltd is a member of Financial Services Complaints FSCL for any disputes that arise that cannot be resolved initially.

Archives

  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • January 2018
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016

Contact Me

emailing me at m.kreling@rdi.nz

P.O. BOX 11
Helensville - 0840

Give me a call: 0800734677 (0800 RDINSR) or 0223632377

PRIVACY POLICY

Please see our Privacy Policy designed to protect your data

Search


Deprecated: genesis_footer_creds_text is deprecated since version 3.1.0! Use genesis_pre_get_option_footer_text instead. This filter is no longer supported. You can now modify your footer text using the Theme Settings. in /var/www/vhosts/rdi.nz/httpdocs/wp-includes/functions.php on line 5698

Copyright © 2022 Rodney District Insurance Ltd. All rights reserved.