ITP Update: Why is liability insurance important?
This week I take a brief look at a crucial protection for those self-employed or running small businesses in tech: Liability Insurance. What is it and do you really need it? (spoiler: yes)
Plus, lots of live webinars coming up, including a look at Cybersecurity with RedShield's Andy Prow this week, in light of the recent attacks on NZ companies. Plus a look at the what, why and how of the skills part of the Industry Transformation Plan next week. Do check these out.
And don't forget, we have 4 different cybersecurity short courses over the next month or so - perfect for you and your team.
Why Liability Insurance is important
Two of the slightly lesser-known services ITP offers tech professionals and companies are actually two of the most important ones; a low-cost group liability insurance option plus a source code escrow service through our subsidiary Escrow NZ Ltd.
I thought I'd take a minute to talk through liability insurance this week and escrow next week: a little about what these are and why you're nuts if you're in business and not protected.
If you're contracting or own your own business, you need liability insurance. It really is as simple as that. As well as being a requirement for most contracts, liability insurance gives you a level of peace-of-mind if things go wrong at a pretty low cost.
Fortunately New Zealand isn't particularly litigious; but that doesn't mean people aren't sued - in fact plenty are all the time, including in our industry. The really sucky thing about legal action is it can be massively costly (in terms of both dollars and reputation) even if it turns out you didn't do anything wrong.
In fact, sadly, businesses have gone under from just trying to defend themselves without insurance.
But look at it from the other side as well. If you do stuff up and cause your clients significant cost, through no fault of theirs, it's actually pretty reasonable for them or their own insurance company to try to recover that cost. This whole process becomes a lot easier and less stressful if you hold insurance - your company will often take over negotiations and resolve it for you.
We really do want to see our members and corporate partners protected, which is why we set up a fairly comprehensive group policy for members at a fraction of the cost of most policies out there (and even less if you hold CITPNZ certification).
ITP's Technology Insurance Package is designed to meet the needs of tech contractors and small companies alike, and contains the following components:
- Professional Indemnity (Covering errors and omissions in advice or work)
- Public Liability (Accidental injury or property damage)
- Statutory Liability (Defending against breach of statute, legislation, or act of parliament)
The ITP package also covers work outside New Zealand - everywhere except USA and Canada (these are available at extra cost).
The current policy, including all of the above and a fairly low excess, starts at $449+GST per annum and you can start the process online right now.
Whether it's through the ITP group scheme or elsewhere, please do make sure you have insurance. It's a small cost in the general scheme of things but if you don't have it, it could cost you everything.
More details on the ITP scheme
Thursday Live Webinar:
Cybersecurity and the recent attacks
4pm, Thursday 10th September 2020. FREE
Cybersecurity has always been important, but never more important than right now. So how do we protect ourselves when the wolves come knocking?
While some have criticised some of the victims for not being able to repel a significant DDOS attack, the reality is that what we've seen in the last week or so are the largest DDOS attacks in New Zealand's history. While many of the sites and services were behind DDOS shields, the attackers were able to overwhelm other upstream pipes, diversify the attacks, and continually bring services down.
While protecting your organisation from such a significantly large and complex attack requires very specialised skills, there are some core things we should all be doing as a starting point. Join senior security expert Andy Prow from RedShield as he talks through recent patterns of attacks (ransomware, DDOS, etc) and the foundational things that can be done to best protect you and your clients.
There'll also be plenty of time for Q&A, with ITP CEO Paul Matthews putting your questions to Andy.
Next week's Live Webinar:
Creating a plan for Digital Skills
4pm, Thursday 17th September 2020. FREE
Many will have heard about the Industry Transformation Plan currently being developed for the digital and technology industry, but what is it really and will it actually make a difference?
Join MBIE Policy Manager Robyn Henderson, who is overseeing the development of the plan from Government's side, and ITP CEO Paul Matthews who is overseeing the Skills component, to find out more about the Plan, and especially the Skills workstream and how you can get involved.
Robyn will give a quick general overview of the Plan (What, Why, How), followed by a deeper dive into the plan of attack for Skills from Paul.
If you're interested in education and skills, or the future of the digital and tech sector, this session is for you. There will also be an opportunity to get involved in the next steps of the development of the skills component of the Plan.
Cybersecurity short courses - essential content
In light of the recent attacks on NZX and others, we've been asked to schedule more of our cybersecurity short courses over the next month or so. These are perfect for tech professionals to help ensure you have the core stuff covered, while also helping put in place plans should you be the victim of an attack.
The following courses are on offer:
22 September - This half-day introduction to web security covers the most common current web security exploits and the approach, principles and frameworks necessary to detect and protect against vulnerabilities. This is an essential course for anyone with responsibility for web or software development, or cloud services within an organisation.
29 September - This half-day Cybersecurity Self-assessment course is intended for those wishing to self-assess their organization's ability to respond to a range of potential cybersecurity threats following established methodologies. Self-assessment allows you to make informed decisions about your security spend rather than relying only on compliance requirements or vendor statements.
Hands-on security: Testing your web apps for exploits
6 October - Our new full-day "Hands-on security" course is a comprehensive one-day course covering the most common current web security exploits and the tools that developers, testers, engineers and security analysts can use every day to detect and protect against vulnerabilities.
Cybersecurity Incident Response Playbooks
13 October - The half-day Cybersecurity Incident Response Playbooks course is intended for those wishing to develop incident response playbook(s) for their organization to respond to a range of potential cybersecurity threats. The course covers best practice cyber-response playbooks following the NIST cyber-response frameworks.
Our half-day courses are from $300+GST per person, and the full-day course is from $430+GST. Members and non-members welcome, however see the website for member and corporate partner pricing.
This really is inexpensive compared with similar courses elsewhere and not much given the cost of getting these things wrong.
All are delivered live online, so participate from anywhere. Also, talk to us about bulk deals to ensure your whole staff are covered.
Want to attend all 4 courses? If you or your team want to attend all four of the above sessions, we'll do the lot for $1200+GST total per place. And yes, you can mix and match attendees. That's 2.5 days' of training for less than the cost of one day elsewhere and really is a steal.
There are very limited places so get in touch quick if you're interested in this (or register for the individual sessions above).
Previous webinars - all available free to members
Our recent Live Webinars have been excellent.
All past webinars are available on the ITP Video Library for members:
- Tech legal update - what you need to know
- An afternoon with Nanogirl
- Taking kiwi tech to the post-Covid world
- Tech startups in a post-Covid world
- The IRD Transformation
- Digital Government and Covid-19
- Tech and the Covid-19 recovery
- Privacy in the days of Covid-19
- Leading Wellness in uncertain times
- Meet the ITP Workshop Presenters
- The data behind Covid19
- Innovation in tough times: Don't Hunker in the Bunker
- Covid19: Tech and the Law
- Cybersecurity from home
- Clarke Ching on disaster innovation
- CITPNZ and CTech: The What, How and Why
- Working Remotely - How to get through
Check out the webinar section here
Save the Date - ITx 2020/2021
After postponing ITx this year due to the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, we are beyond excited to announce the dates for ITx 2021 - 3-5 May 2021 at TSB Arena in Wellington.
ITx is a collaborative conference, with around 12 tech organisations working together to make it happen. We work with the other organisations to bring all of these communities together.
As always the conference focuses on bringing tech professionals, decision-makers, leaders and academics together under one roof - it really is where industry and education come together to learn, engage and network. We will also be celebrating 60 years of IT Professionals NZ!
Get your ITP gear
Now is the perfect time to head over to the ITP store and grab yourself some sleek, warm and practical items for work and play. These customizable items come in a variety of sleek and simple designs and are perfect for work, networking or casualwear.
The official ITP store has a whole bunch of professional and casual clothing options, some which can be co-branded with your company. It's a great opportunity to show that you don't just "do IT" - you're also serious about professional practice.
Pop on over to shop.itp.nz to check it out.
Have a great week,
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