Franklin County Keeps Cyber Insurance Limit After Review of Two Breaches

Franklin County supervisors discussed whether to raise the county's cyber-liability insurance limit after two recent security incidents, but members said they would keep the current $250,000 cap rather than accept a proposal that would raise premiums substantially.

Speaker 1, an unidentified meeting participant, told the board the county's insurer ICAP proposed boosting cyber liability from $250,000 to $1 million. Speaker 1 said the county's outlays for two incidents totaled about $31,000. "We did ask ICAP how much did we spend towards our liability limit the year we had 2 incidents. And that was a total of about $31,000," Speaker 1 said.

Speaker 4, who described recent breach investigations and security upgrades, said one incident was "a fairly complicated breach" while the other was simpler, and that the county has strengthened passwords and other protections since then. "We rolled it out immediately," Speaker 4 said of the upgrades, adding that expanded protections make it "much, much harder" for repeat attackers.

Board members and staff weighed the insurance trade-offs. Speaker 4 warned that changing limits midstream would not retroactively cover a breach that had already begun and noted that premiums would more than double. After discussion, the board did not move to raise the coverage limit and members expressed comfort keeping the current cap and security posture.

The county did not record a formal roll-call motion on the insurance change; supervisors characterized the decision as staying at the existing coverage level for now, while noting it could be revisited if future incidents or ICAP recommendations change.

Speaker 2 closed the discussion by thanking staff for the briefing. The meeting proceeded to other agenda items.