South Africa’s insurance sector is becoming increasingly digital, which improves turnaround times and customer service, but also brings with it new challenges.
By Hemant Harie, group chief technology officer at DMP SA
Insurance by nature deals with sensitive and personal information, and a growing body of legislation as well as the rapid increase in cybercrime activity. This means these companies are under growing pressure to effectively protect, recover, and maintain these data volumes.
Data management alone is no longer enough – insurers need to be able to withstand, recover from, and continue operations in the face of cyber threats, natural disasters, or other disruptions. Data resilience, more than just an aspect of data management, is now a strategic imperative for insurers operating in this complex, high-stakes environment.
Beyond the backup
A KPMG survey from 2023 underscores how South African insurers are prioritising data governance, focusing on standardising data collection and securing storage solutions. These elements work together to ensure data integrity, regulatory compliance, and operational efficiency, but it has become imperative to move beyond this.
Insurers also need robust recovery and resilience strategies to ensure business continuity. In an industry where uninterrupted service is critical, especially during emergencies or claims, the ability to recover quickly from data loss or corruption is no longer a luxury, it is essential to survival.
Simply backing up data is not enough. The real question is whether your data recovery systems are resilient enough to ensure access when disaster strikes. It is easy to assume that because data is backed up, it can be restored effortlessly, but that assumption can be dangerously misleading.
Data resilience goes beyond maintaining backup copies, it involves testing and ensuring that those backups can be accessed in worst-case scenarios, such as a cyberattack or a catastrophic system failure.
A well-thought-out data resilience strategy enables insurers to recover quickly from disruptions, minimising downtime and preventing reputational damage. For example, if a life insurance provider cannot retrieve a customer’s policy due to data unavailability, the financial and operational fallout can be severe.
In such cases, strong data resilience safeguards insurers against losses, ensures compliance, and most importantly, enables them to provide the seamless service their clients expect.
Incorporating cyber resilience is key
South Africa is an attractive destination for cybercriminals for multiple reasons, and insurers, who deal with sensitive information, are a prime target, which makes cyber resilience an indispensable part of a data resilience strategy.
Cybercriminals increasingly target not just production data, but also backup systems, and a breach that results in the loss or corruption of insurers’ data could have devastating consequences, from reputational damage to legal and financial penalties.
A key component of cyber resilience is ensuring that backups are not only stored securely but also protected from compromise. Insurers need to ensure their backups are encrypted, securely stored in multiple locations, and regularly scanned for potential threats. One advanced solution is the implementation of “clean room” recovery strategies.
These environments provide insurers with the ability to recover data in a secure, controlled space, ensuring that the data restored is free of malware or other hidden threats that could undermine recovery efforts.
Test, test and test again
A common challenge for businesses across the board is the belief that backup and recovery systems are functional and effective, only for a crisis to hit and for organisations to discover a flaw in their plans. Regular testing of backup, recovery and data resilience strategies is imperative to ensure that they work when they are needed. Insurers need to simulate real-world scenarios, including cyberattacks, to ensure they are prepared for any contingency.
Insurers that can demonstrate strong resilience are not just better protected against external threats, they also position themselves as reliable and trustworthy in the eyes of their clients. In an industry built on trust, the ability to ensure data integrity, security, and recoverability can be a crucial differentiator in a competitive market. Data resilience also plays a critical role in ensuring compliance with ever-evolving regulatory requirements.
Ultimately, data resilience is about future-proofing the insurance sector. Insurers must look beyond basic data management to create comprehensive, tested, and secure recovery strategies that address the modern threat landscape. This includes regularly assessing risks, testing recovery processes and securing backups from cyber threats.
Data resilience is no longer just a technical consideration for IT departments, it’s a business-critical issue. The ability to recover from disaster is key to ensuring business continuity, protecting customer data, and maintaining a competitive edge.