The insurance industry is a paper-intensive industry. You deal with many paper documents regularly — NDAs, property records, payment records, tax documents, and more. It’s easy to overlook that huge pile of printed paperwork that accumulates in your insurance office.
As an insurance provider storing sensitive client details and proprietary data, securely destroying these records is a crucial yet often neglected aspect of information security. If you want to stay vigilant and transparent towards your customers (and to comply with GDPR rules), you must securely shred these confidential documents.
By partnering with a reliable and professional shredding service like Pulp, your insurance firms can efficiently uphold the data privacy of your clients.
The Importance of Confidential Shredding for Insurance Firms
Insurance companies and brokers have several expansive client documents containing personal information like medical records, financial statements, and more. Within an insurer’s walls, these records pass through many hands, accumulating in file rooms and on employee desks.
While there are several stringent ways to secure digital media, physical documents still have significant privacy and compliance risks without confidential shredding measures in place.
Additionally, printed records consume storage space and sometimes “preserve” sensitive data vulnerable to insider (like employees) and outsider threats. Without a proper shredding process, insurance firms risk identity theft and fraud.
As people and governments become more conscious about how their data is handled, insurance providers that lack safe shredding mechanisms risk negative publicity and legal penalties in case a breach happens. Transforming your documents to digital media alone can’t solve this gap, as you can’t fully get rid of paper documents (they’re easily accessible).
Beyond mitigating immediate data leak risks, confidential shredding also deters “dumpster diving,” where fraudsters access documents from a target’s unsecured physical trash/bin.
In summary, here are the reasons why you’d want your paper document shredded securely:
- The Data Protection Commission mandates it
- To stay transparent and respect the privacy of your customers
- To avoid dumpster diving and employee leaks
- It consumes unnecessary storage
You can get help from Pulp’s safe, reliable shredding services. We help you regain peace of mind over client data and focus on serving policyholder needs.
Insurance Documents You Should Shred
Almost every document you handle as an insurance professional or an insurance agency can contain sensitive data warranting reliable destruction.
This includes clients’ records like medical/health documents, financial statements, and identification details that need to be destroyed to prevent identity theft. Even internal paperwork like payroll sheets and claims reports can expose compliance violations unless you properly destroy such documents.
Here’s a table that lists some documents of your clients and company that you should definitely shred:
| Client documents | Medical records, prescriptions, lab results, therapy/consultation notes, disability/injury reports, financial statements, tax documents, photographic IDs, car registrations, property appraisals, and address histories. |
| Internal documents | Personnel records, payroll sheets, performance reviews, complaints and investigations, claimant adjustment reports, subrogation and recovery filings, loss reserve and payment data, agent commissions, customer contracts, nondisclosure agreements, and handwritten case notes. |
Essentially all physical insurance documents must be professionally shredded once their retention period expires. Also, if you’re relying on in-house shredding, it might be the right time to upgrade as there are several risks of in-house shredding involved, for instance, shredding machines are a potential fire hazard.
The Process and Cost of Shredding
There are two major models provided by third-party services when it comes to document shredding for insurance firms: regular or one-off basis. In the regular model, shredding providers come to your office for document destruction, while one-off is simply a “call when you need it” model.
The Process
Here’s the process for document destruction for insurance companies: Shredding companies provide locked containers to safely contain documents between destruction appointments. Your personnel simply sorts papers slated for destruction into these containers as they accumulate. During your scheduled visits, mobile shred truck specialists will unlock the containers onsite, record all tracked documents, and feed them into huge shredding devices fitted in the truck. These devices slice records into tiny pieces to prevent identity theft if recovered.
You can watch through viewing windows on the truck and cameras to visually confirm your data gets destroyed reliably and completely onsite. Once the process is completed, shredding companies will issue certificates guaranteeing document destruction to support internal audits and compliance. All records also undergo vetted chain-of-custody protocols meeting industry regulations like NAID AAA certification or ISO 9001 standards.
The Cost
There’s no standard cost of shredding as it depends on various factors such as service frequency, volume needs, and regional rates. Noteworthily, shredding is cost-efficient information security compared to potential breach scenarios.
Consult directly with one of our experts at Pulp to receive quotes for insurance shredding services as per your firm’s needs. Scheduled plans offer more affordability over one-off destruction.
Choosing the Right Confidential Shredding Service Provider
Insurance documents are sensitive in nature. Gone in the wrong hands, they can do more harm than benefit for your clients. It is your responsibility to get it shredded, and that’s why choosing the right shredding service provider is critical.
When vetting these specialists, ensure you keep in mind these essential criteria:
Industry Certifications
Trustworthy shredding services comply with destruction standards and audits from regulating bodies. Top shredding companies in Ireland have at least NAID AAA certification and ISO 9001 accreditation (internationally recognised quality management compliance).
Onsite Mobile Destruction
Check if the company you’re choosing offers onsite mobile destruction for your insurance documents. This model of destruction is safer than the others as it avoids vulnerable transportation and centralised storage at shredding plants.
Chain-of-Custody Tracking
Insurance regulations require documenting signatures, access records, and oversight throughout document handling. Good companies account for each container’s shredded contents with unique tracking numbers, file lists, and destruction certificates listing the exact document types destroyed.
Regular & One-Off Service Options
As insurance documents require both scheduled and sporadic destruction, a good shredding company will offer flexibility with their services and prepare your documents for the scheduled destruction. Ideally, it should have at least regular and one-off shredding options.
At Pulp, we have gone one step ahead and have brought you onsite destruction of your insurance paper documents as well.
Summing Up
By now, you must’ve understood how crucial document shredding is for insurance brokers and companies. There are confidential documents and papers you deal with regularly. It is your responsibility towards your clients and customers to ensure they are secure. You may have strict digital security in your firm, it’s time to ensure physical papers and documents aren’t at high risk of a breach.
Insurance document shredding helps to patch this threat by destroying sensitive physical documents. Get help from an accredited provider for your insurance company’s document destruction needs. Save your insurance firm’s storage costs while increasing security and compliance over sensitive client information.
