On August 27th, Hospital Sisters Health System (HSHS) suffered a cyberattack that caused a systemwide outage, leaving doctors and nurses to provide care without internet or phones for over a week. The incident affected all clinical operations and communications systems at HSHS St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, HSHS St. Joseph’s Breese, HSHS St. Joseph’s Highland, and HSHS Holy Family Hospital.

According to an update from HSHS, functionality was successfully restored to the health system’s EPIC platform, which includes MyHSHS and MyChart, more than two weeks after the incident. Patients can now use these platforms to schedule appointments and send messages to their healthcare providers. Phone lines were restored last week, and HSHS is still working to restore the rest of its systems “in a methodical manner, which will take time to complete.”

This incident is a wake-up call for insurance executives. Cyberattacks are becoming more frequent and sophisticated, and the consequences can be devastating. In the case of HSHS, patients' health and safety were put at risk, and the hospital system may face legal and financial consequences.

As insurance executives, it’s your responsibility to protect your clients from cyber risks. Traditional insurance policies may not be enough to cover the damages caused by cyberattacks. That’s where parametric insurance comes in.

Parametric insurance is a type of insurance that pays out when a predefined event occurs, such as a cyberattack. It’s based on real-time data and dynamic risk modeling, which enables insurers to build and operate parametric insurance at scale. With parametric insurance, clients can receive fast and reliable payouts, which can help them recover from the damages caused by cyberattacks.

In the case of HSHS, parametric insurance could have helped the hospital system recover from the damages caused by the cyberattack. It could have provided fast and reliable payouts, which could have helped the hospital system restore its systems and provide care to its patients.

At Riskwolf, we specialize in parametric insurance. We can help insurance executives develop parametric insurance policies that protect their clients from cyber risks. With Riskwolf, you can turn real-time data into insurance. Using unique real-time data and dynamic risk modeling, we enable insurers to build and operate parametric insurance at scale. Simple. Reliable. Fast.

Don’t wait for a cyberattack to happen. Contact Riskwolf today to learn more about how we can help you develop parametric insurance policies that protect your clients from cyber risks.

To read the full update from HSHS along with answers to frequently asked questions, visit hshsupdates.org.