Tug of War Emerges in Cyber Policy Claims, Daily Journal, ft. Mark Mao

Hsiao (Mark) C. Mao, partner and Co-Chair of KD’s Technology Practices Group in San Francisco, has been quoted in a Daily Journal article published June 26, 2015.

After paying more than $4 million to settle a data breach class action filed against one of its policyholders, insurer Columbia Casualty Co. is seeking to recoup those funds by suing the policyholder and claiming it did not follow the “minimum required practices”.

With the increasing number of data breaches in recent years, Mark C. Mao, co-chairman of the data privacy practice at Kaufman Dolowich & Voluck LLP, said “it may be more difficult for health care entities to get cybercoverage and they often face higher premiums in the marketplace.”

“Health care companies seek data privacy counsel more often because such organizations historically have had more privacy incidents arise. They often have older security systems, while being subject to one of the longest standing set of privacy rules,” Mao said. “For health care, their priority is typically to make sure that you are well.”

“IT can become a secondary concern to non-tech companies,” he added.

Read more at the full article.