Tis the season! With Christmas just around the corner, online shopping is getting in full throttle with the upcoming #BlackFriday & #CyberMonday sales. It's a killer combination, fishing for sweet deals on Christmas gifts while enjoying a cup of joe in one hand and shop till you drop on your laptop in the other.

However, you aren't the only ones cashing in on all the holiday sales. Hackers will be going phishing... and your wallet & personal info is their ultimate catch.

It's that moment they warn you about. Melissa was at the point of no return when the light turned yellow. Cue the slow motion chain of events that found her locking bumpers with a young man in the intersecting lane, who had flown thru what we knew would be a green light. He told the police officer she had run a red light. But Melissa had something the other driver didn't... proof.

While there was some, admittedly embarrassing, audio of her singing along to the latest Taylor Swift jam, her dashcam showed who was really at fault.

How Wedgwood was targeted and how our processes prevented a $35,000 scam…. Anyone who thinks Cyber Risk is only for large companies is mistaken. While complex cyber attacks on large corporations get all the news, it’s the smaller, well organized scams targeting small and medium size businesses that are doing the damage. It’s going on every day, businesses are being scammed, and nobody is talking about it. On December 12th, 2014 a very authentic looking email was received at our office, that appeared to be an internal email, requesting our administration department to wire transfer $35,000. A word document was attached with instructions. The tone of the email was very authentic. Note that the domain on the “From email’ has been changed to .co from .com. - everywhere else in the message, the wedgwoodinsurance.com domain remains unchanged. Unless you read the email VERY carefully, it would be very easy for this to go unnoticed. Wedgwood has a verification policy before any wi ...

One of the important risk areas we try and educate clients about is Reputation Risk and the impact Social Media can have on your company's brand and the Personal Brand of the people who work there.

Municipalities across Newfoundland held elections last night. As a voter in St. John's, I followed the election with some interest. Obviously many people didn't since the overall voter turnout was only around 53%. Some of the apathy around Federal and Provincial politics is somewhat understandable since national politics may often seem far removed from the daily life of many individuals.

One of the largest Emerging Risks is Cyber Liability. Headlines abound of attacks on different organizations, ranging from Denial of Service (DoS) attacks or theft of personal data from e-commerce servers. Organizations of all sizes are held to a higher standard these days; data is expected to be secure and clients demand 24 hour service. Cyber Risk can be an expensive cost for businesses that don't have a plan in place to protect their data, client information and their own reputation.

In fact, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that small business may be the low hanging fruit for cyber-thieves. Small businesses may have weaker security, more lax privacy rules and looser control on mobile device security. As a result, while the pay-offs may not be as large, the time and effort required may be much lower. On the other hand smaller businesses have a significantly higher cost per file stolen than large organizations. ($1,088 versus $284)

We'd like to welcome our first guess blogger, Chris McDonald of Telelink. Every now and then, we come across a client who is doing something so amazingly cool, we feel the need to share it, and what they are accomplishing in the area of Fleet and Journey Management is going to be more applicable to fleets of all sizes in the future. Read on... .According to the World Health Organization's most recent Global Road Safety report, road traffic injuries result in approximately 55,000 fatalities each year across North America [1]. With millions of commercial vehicles on the road each day, it comes as no surprise that the Association of Workers' Compensation Boards of Canada and US Bureau of Labor Statistics consistently rank Driving and Transportation as one of the top three most dangerous professions in North America [2]. From a business perspective, failure to manage and mitigate Fleet Risk can have serious consequences, from irreversible brand damage and poor morale to costs resulting from increased insurance pr ...

What happened with the Gerry Rogers/Social Media fiasco last week is a great example what can happen if you don't understand what is going on with social media. That whole topic has been beaten to death so I won't elaborate more but... What this situation does clearly illustrate is how important it is for all organizations to have a grip on Social Media even if your business isn't actively engaged in it. Clearly it's never been as easy for employees, vendors and or clients to have their say (positive or negative) about your organization. Without at least having an understanding of what is going on, your business can get skewered and you won't even know about it. For example, check out a local Twitter account called @ishopandtell . It is a place where consumers can share the good and the bad about their experiences dealing with local businesses. That account has 1500 followers and over 5,000 tweets. We monitor Twitter to pick up any activity about Wedgwood. Here is one exchange that went through @ishopandt ...

Lets be clear - using your cell phone or mobile device while driving is illegal in Newfoundland, but...

...we've all seen someone do it. We might find it hard to admit, but many of us have done it. It's easy to explain. You're driving in slow traffic, your phone rings and you instinctively pick it up. You think it's okay because the traffic's not moving, but then you get a break and all of a sudden you're moving freely but you're still on the phone. Some of us don't even use that excuse. The thing is, a mobile phone is one of the easiest ways to find yourself making a car insurance claim.

Mobile phones create a distraction while you're driving. They make it hard to concentrate on the road and it's when you're not concentrating that accidents happen. And it's not just phone calls that can cause a distraction.

Identity Theft is becoming a larger issue these days. According to the Norton Cybercrime Report 2010, 64% of Canadian Adults have experienced some form of Cyber Cyber crime, which includes everything from Malware and Virus problems, to full on robbery of personal information. Here are some of the stats. Those Who.. Canadians (Adults) CYBERCRIME Have experienced some form of Cybercrime 64%(Malware Virus 53%) POWERLESS AND FEARFUL CONSUMERS Do not expect to be a victim of cybercrime   Feel "very safe" online 1%     13% NO JUSTICE Think cyber criminals will no ...