Incident Summary #5: Life insurance company employs best practices in responding to mass mailing error that risked exposing personal information - March 21, 2014

A life insurance company discovered that a mass mailing error risked exposing the personal information of 53 pension plan members. The new window envelopes used were larger, potentially revealing certificate numbers, SINs, dates of birth, spouse's names, and beneficiaries if statements shifted. Upon discovering the incident, the company promptly notified affected individuals, apologized, explained the incident, and offered a free one-year credit monitoring service. They also advised members to take harm-reducing steps and ceased using the problematic envelopes. The company informed the OPC about the incident and its response. The OPC concluded that the company demonstrated best practices in its incident response.