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SALT LAKE CITY, December 1, 2022 – LenderDock Inc., a SaaS company offering the only truly digital Property and Casualty Insurance policy verification solution, announced a new partnership with Farm Bureau Insurance Company of Idaho. LenderDock also specializes in automating lienholder process management services.

“LenderDock is proud to be partnered with Idaho Farm Bureau given their laser focus on their customers and a strategic commitment to managing internal resources, optimizing business processes, and mitigating costs. Their thoughtful approach to technology solutions and partnerships is exemplary,” said Frank Eubank, LenderDock’s CEO.

Through the partnership, the use of LenderDock’s Base Platform will help Idaho Farm Bureau’s service and support teams eliminate time-consuming lender communications. LenderDock Base includes the Verifi™ and Correxion™ services. In addition, Idaho Farm looks to implement LenderDock’s Notifi™ service, which facilitates the electronic delivery of loss payee, billing notifications, and escrow billing.

Founded as Idaho Farm Insurance Company in 1947, the company began by offering only auto insurance. Today, Idaho Farm Bureau is one of the Gem State’s leading auto insurers, as well as the state’s largest writer of farm and ranch insurance. It is the largest insurance company wholly based in Idaho.

About LenderDock Inc.

Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, LenderDock Inc. is the leading provider of online Property and Casualty Insurance policy verification and automated lien holder process management services. The policy verification-as-a-service (VaaS) platform offers banks, lenders, and financial third parties the ability to digitally verify and correct home and auto policy-related data in real time.

Florida’s insurance market is nearing complete failure. This man-made calamity is putting financial strain on consumers as the average homeowner’s insurance policy is nearly three times the national average in 2022.

While hurricanes have undoubtedly caused some of the issues – three major ones have made landfall in the state in the last six years – the natural disasters in the state of Florida aren’t the major reason for the failure of the insurance market.

The real cause

According to the Florida governor’s office, the state is home to 79 percent of all homeowners insurance lawsuits over filed claims across the nation. Yet, the state’s insurers receive just 9 percent of the U.S.’s homeowners insurance claims.

The numerous lawsuits have no doubt made an impact on insurer operating costs. In the last 10 years, the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) reported that $51 billion was paid out by the state’s insurers, with 71 percent of that sum going to attorneys’ fees and public adjusters. In the last two years (2020-21), net underwriting losses for Florida’s homeowners’ insurers totaled more than $1 billion per year.

Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state-backed property insurer of last resort in the state, has seen its policy count climb rapidly. In a report published late last year, the company estimated that its policy count would reach 1.1-1.3 million by the end of 2022, up from just 420,000 three years ago. The company provides insurance coverage to homeowners who cannot secure a homeowners insurance policy from a private-sector insurer.

Third-party rating bureaus have even downgraded the financial ratings of some of the insurers operating in Florida, making homeowners insurance even more unaffordable and unavailable in the state.

According to figures from Triple-I, compiled using data and analysis from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), Florida’s OIR, and their own estimates of home replacement cost, the typical homeowners’ insurance policyholder paid $2,505 for coverage in 2020. Just one year later, the figure rose to $3,181, an over $600 annual increase.

In a special legislative session in May 2022, Florida lawmakers passed Senate Bill 2B, which Gov. Ron DeSantis subsequently signed into law. The measure is meant to ease homeowners’ premium increases and reduce excessive litigation.

What can you do?

All things considered, what can Florida property owners do?  Experts have provided a couple of options to explore:

  1. Shop around for better rates from another carrier.  Most likely you won’t find a significantly cheaper alternative to what you are currently paying but it might be wise to simply check and see.
  2. Look into adding additional surplus lines of insurance offered by non-Florida-based insurance companies.  The problem with this is that they won’t be covered by any backup fund provided by the state of Florida if they happen to fail.

Insurance specialists also recommend if you are unable to find an alternative plan then it might be best to remain with your current carrier.  Even if they drop you for some reason, you will most likely be placed with Citizens of Florida Insurance Company.  They are the state-run insurance program used as a backup plan should another Florida company fail.  Bear in mind, you’ll probably be paying more for your policy but at least your property will remain insured.

Finally, it is recommended that you check your current policy’s replacement cost coverage.  With spiraling inflation on housing materials, you may have to adjust your limits higher in order to cover the uptick in costs.   The last thing you would want after a disaster is to have to pay extraordinarily large out-of-pocket expenses in order to rebuild or repair your damaged home.

SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 2, 2022 – LenderDock Inc., the leading provider of online Property and Casualty Insurance policy verification and automated lienholder process management services, today announced a new partnership with Goosehead Insurance Inc. (NASDAQ: GSHD), a rapidly growing independent personal lines insurance agency, to automate their lender-servicer interactions such as lienholder verifications and mortgage correction requests. Through the partnership, LenderDock’s Base Platform, which includes the Verifi™ and Correxion ™ services, will help Goosehead’s service and support teams eliminate thousands of time-consuming lender-originated communications. 

With this launch, lenders now have access to a shared portal specifically built for loan originators, trackers, and financial third parties that need to interact with policy information but don’t want to call, email, or fax it over. The shared portal facilitates verifications, corrections, and documents while streamlining request volume intake where necessary for efficient processing.

“We’re excited to partner with LenderDock, not just because of their industry expertise, platform simplicity, and track record of success, but also because it means our teams can spend less time speaking with lenders, and more time speaking with customers,” said Marisa Wagner, Managing Director at Goosehead. “Our service teams can spend up to a third of their day on lender-related e-mails and faxes, and LenderDock’s cloud-based technology will free up that time so they can focus on what they do best- delivering world-class customer experiences.”

Goosehead Insurance is reinventing the traditional approach to distributing personal lines products and services throughout the United States. As the agency continues to scale, this partnership will also help Goosehead reduce overhead costs and eliminate antiquated business processes.

“We are honored to be collaborating with a great insurance provider who has committed to driving operational efficiencies through process and data automation technology. Goosehead is a brand that continues to represent initiative and innovation when it comes to serving their customers,” said Frank Eubank, LenderDock’s CEO.

About LenderDock Inc.

Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, LenderDock Inc. is the leading provider of online Property and Casualty Insurance policy verification and automated lienholder process management services. The policy verification-as-a-service (VaaS) platform offers banks, lenders, and financial third parties the ability to digitally verify and correct home and auto policy-related data in real-time.

About Goosehead

Goosehead (NASDAQ: GSHD) is a rapidly growing and innovative independent personal lines insurance agency that distributes its products and services throughout the United States. Goosehead was founded on the premise that the consumer should be at the center of our universe and that everything we do should be directed at providing extraordinary value by offering broad product choice and a world-class service experience. Goosehead represents over 150 insurance companies that underwrite personal lines and small commercial lines risks, and its operations include a network of 12 corporate sales offices and 2,287 operating and contracted franchise locations. For more information, please visit gooseheadinsurance.com.

SALT LAKE CITY – Oct. 21, 2022 – LenderDock Inc. (LenderDock) and IMT Insurance have recently formed a new partnership.

As the business landscape has become increasingly more competitive, IMT was looking for ways to enhance the level of service and value to their customers while reducing operational costs. 

LenderDock’s Notifi™ service provides the solution with its all-digital solution that ensures electronic delivery of all third-party notifications and escrow bills.  The cloud-based platform helps mitigate the expense of traditional print and postage and leverages real-time analytics and reporting.  

“We are very excited to be partnering with IMT as they remain laser-focused on delivering the best customer experience as possible to their clients.  It’s an honor for us to contribute to their goal of sourcing digital solutions to meet their needs”, says Frank Eubank, LenderDock’s CEO.      

IMT is a Midwest US company founded in 1884. Today, IMT continues to offer strong lines of personal and commercial insurance products along with providing exceptional service for a competitive price. IMT serves companies through Independent Agency locations in six states – Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.

Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, LenderDock Inc. is the leading provider of online Property and Casualty Insurance policy verification and automated lien holder process management services. The policy verification-as-a-service (VaaS) platform offers banks, lenders, and all financial third parties the ability to digitally verify and correct home and auto policy-related data in real-time.

Insurers are familiar with the many problems caused by cyberattacks, but how familiar is the industry with the specific types? 

The insurance and insurtech industries are more than aware of the potential dangers of cyberattacks. After all, insurers provide coverage to many of the entities that may be vulnerable to or targets of scammers that aim to disrupt business and steal data or monetary funds. 

With the issues they face today, what is the insurance industry doing to protect itself from these attacks and how will the current climate of the economy affect the ability of insurers to battle cyberattacks? 

What threats should providers be aware of? 

Insurtechs and insurance carriers face a variety of threats, including ransomware attacks, data exfiltration, email phishing scams, and dedicated denial of service (DDoS) attacks. 

Insurance companies store large amounts of both financial and personal data, which means that any successful cyberattack could have dire consequences for them as a company and for their customers. 

It comes as no surprise that the finance and insurance industries are targets of cyberattacks. Along with the possibility of unmitigated data loss, malware and DDoS attacks have the ability to cause disruption to financial institutions while leaving customers without access to services. 

The state of the 2022 cyber threat landscape 

According to the data from the 2022 IBM Security X-Force Threat Intelligence Index, server access attacks were the most common types of attacks aimed at insurance and finance organizations.  In 2021, they accounted for 14 percent.  

Common cyber threats insurance organizations face:  

  • Server access attacks – An attack that involves gaining access to a company’s servers, either by exploiting a system weakness or by using stolen or leaked passwords. 
  • Ransomware – Malware that prevents a user from accessing their own programs and files until they have paid a ransom to the scammers. 
  • Credential harvesting – A credential harvesting – or password harvesting – attack involves attackers gathering many compromised user accounts, usually by sending a phishing email attack. 
  • RATs – Remote access trojans are a type of malware that allows a criminal to remotely control an infected computer including accessing the files and data stored on it. 
  • Misconfiguration – An attack that occurs when a cybercriminal discovers vulnerabilities in the security configurations of a cloud, application, or web server. 

While the IBM Index shows that insurance and finance industries are no longer the most targeted for attacks – that title now belongs to the manufacturing industry – they still accounted for nearly a quarter of the threats (22.4 percent). 

Although the number is slightly lower than the previous year, this in no way means that insurtech and fintech companies are in the clear. 

Additionally, companies need to be aware of potential weaknesses within their organization that could leave them exposed to cyberattacks. Unfortunately, with recent staff layoffs as well as the rising cost of business operations, both insurtechs and insurance carriers are now as vulnerable as ever. 

LenderDock values security 

As a company, LenderDock takes possible security threats very seriously. Being SOC 2 certified, LenderDock is exceeding industry standards while protecting your data. Rest assured that your data is safe with LenderDock. 

While consumers are moving towards digital channels and apps more than ever before to complete daily tasks; the trend is also being seen in the insurance industry.

Let’s take a look at some of the risks you may face in the insurance sector.

Mobile apps: The risks

While many people moving to use apps for their insurance needs, it also means that many important pieces of valuable information end up concentrated in the apps. Medical information, addresses, account numbers, SSNs, etc. is far more valuable on the black market than the average credit card number, seeing as credit cards can be canceled. Personal information is usually permanent, and it can be used for fraud and other schemes by criminals.

With the large amount of information contained in the apps, it’s not particularly surprising that cybercriminals are targeting insurers and mobile apps.

Just recently in 2021, the New York Department of Financial Services fined multiple insurers for noncompliance breaches. Fines aren’t the only punishment for leaky insurers either. If companies are found negligent in protecting their mobile app, successful attacks often result in lawsuits.

Apps can be attacked in a multitude of ways, but there are six main ways the attacks occur. If proper steps are taken to protect consumer information, a vast majority of attacks will be unsuccessful.

1. Stealing personal policyholder information

Things like full legal names, marital status, date of birth, and social security numbers are often stored on insurance mobile apps. There can even be a driver’s license with car information (VIN, license plate number) stored on them.

To protect this data, it needs to be encrypted in the app by using the AES 256 or a similarly strong system. Data shouldn’t be the only thing that is encrypted, however. It should also cover the data used by the APIs. If things like tokens, URLs, passwords, etc. aren’t properly secured, cybercriminals can easily use them to access the insurer’s system.

2. Location information

Insurtech and insurance apps track location data for many reasons, including things like driver behavior to provide discounts or to activate or deactivate coverage based on location.

By rooting (Android) or jailbreaking (iOS) a device, hackers can gain more privileges that allow them to control the operating system and access location data. Apps should have the capability to detect when the device is jailbroken or rooted and shut them down to prevent unsafe data storage.

3. Keyloggers and overlays

The latest malware can employ a trick on its users, where it presents a fake screen over an insurance app, making the user think that they’re entering their data into a trusted source. Malware steals data in this way and can also take over accounts and other malevolent acts.

Keyloggers work similarly but run in the background while tracking every key entry a consumer makes in an application. Mobile apps need to detect these attack types so they can stop operating when they are in effect to protect the user and their data.

4. Intercepting data through transactions

Many insurtech apps allow policyholders to pay for coverage as they need it, adding coverage as they go. While this is a great feature, it also makes these apps vulnerable to attacks on payment information. To protect payment data, all data types must be encrypted using a level to comply with the PCI (Payment Card Industry) standard.

If an insurer is found to be in violation of PCI compliance, fines and even the loss of ability to accept credit cards as a payment type may result.

5. Abuse of static and dynamic analysis tools

Software developers use this information to debug and complete other important tasks during software creation, but it can also be used by cybercriminals to discover an app’s internal logic. The insights enable them to create polished, targeted, and highly effective attacks on not only the apps, but also the app’s back-end services.

Obscuring the binary code will help prevent reverse engineering, while added shielding with anti-debugging, anti-reversing, and anti-tampering protections will strengthen the app’s defenses.

6. Network attacks

Many mobile apps from both insurtech and insurance companies communicate using TLS 1.1 and HTTP, neither of which are particularly secure. They allow for cybercriminals to perpetrate “man-in-the-middle” attacks on data while it’s being transmitted, which allows for them to steal and even alter it mid-stream. To protect against potential attacks, developers should implement TLS version enforcement, TLS 1.3, secure certificate validation and malicious proxy detection.

In conclusion

Both insurtech and insurance industry members have a great chance to grow and improve consumer satisfaction with mobile apps. These apps must be secure or a cybercriminal is waiting in the dark to execute their next attack. Securing against these threats will help ensure the safety of everyone and their data while building a foundation for digital expansion.

How is insurance verified?

To prove that coverage exists for an insured party, a COI (Certificate of Insurance) is often requested or required by a third party. For the insured, it is a digital or physical form that shows proof of being covered by a particular type of coverage (e.g., casualty, liability, etc.) in the event of a claim being filed against them by a third party.

Any time that a specific insurance plan needs to be verified by a regulatory body, legal representative, employer, etc., a COI is the final proof of its coverage. And while it isn’t a legal contract, it is evidence that an insurance contract exists between the person insured and the carrier.

What to look for on a COI

Usually, COIs contain one page of pertinent information organized in a recognizable pattern. Here are a few things to look for on a COI, confirming the document is legitimate and not fraudulent.

Basic information about both the policy and parties involved, including:

  • Effective policy date
  • Name of the insured with contact information
  • Producer serving the policy
  • Company providing the coverage, labeled using letters

COIs also contain detailed information about the specific coverage being provided and final information on the holder of the certificate, including:

  • Certificate holder that matches the “insured” above
  • Statement from the insurer stating they may – but are not obligated to – notify the holder of the certificate in the event of a cancellation of the policies on the certificate
  • Authorization representative of the insurer

Certificate management

Standardization of COIs streamlines the verification process while also making it feasible for companies to be able to process large amounts of COIs for different coverages, policies, and insureds. But even with standardization, it can be challenging for larger companies to manage the COIs with the growing network of their strategic partners.

LenderDock makes COI management simple & easy

LenderDock is the first and only cloud-based solution that empowers banks and lenders to generate On-Demand Certificates of Coverage and Evidences of Insurance all in real-time.  Insurance providers recapture significant time and resources by enabling a true self-service environment for loan originators and mortgage banks to access and verify necessary policy-related data.  Insurers across the country are taking advantage of LenderDock’s platform for immediate and valuable cost savings and operational efficiencies.  To learn more about LenderDock’s unique lienholder process automation ecosystem, contact [email protected].