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The Case: In a suit filed in Orange County California Superior Court, the mother of an injured 6-year-old says the Los Angeles Angels’ negligence led to her child’s fractured skull when a baseball hit him.

The incident occurred during an autograph signing meet & greet about 90 minutes before game time.

According to the Associated Press , “pitcher Keynan Middleton, who was warming up on the field, threw a ball toward another Angels player who missed the catch.”

The child was rushed to the hospital in critical condition and has since recovered, but brain scans show abnormal activity.

“The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and coverage of medical costs and loss of future earnings,” according to the AP .

Scorecard: The case was recently filed and has not reached a resolution.

Takeaway: “The lawsuit by the boy’s mother Beatrice Galaz said the team should have more netting along the side of the field and players shouldn’t throw balls during warmups in areas where spectators could be struck,” the AP reported .

In recent years, the MLB has expanded netting requirements in ballparks but those are meant as protection for batted balls during gameplay and warmups. In 2019, some teams extended netting after a 79-year-old woman died after being hit by a foul ball at Dodger Stadium.

While Angel Stadium had installed netting beyond the dugout, it would not have protected the child in the current suit because the incident occurred during a special event outside of game play.

Netting is an issue across professional sports. The NHL created a protective netting policy back in 2002 following the death of a 13-year-old who was hit by a flying puck.

The Case: Oregon is suing Illinois-based Center for Covid Control, a testing company that allegedly stole “millions of dollars in federal funds and insurance money,” and provided questionable test results, according to the Associated Press .

CCC, run by married couple Aleya Siyaj and Akbar Ali Syed, “had no prior experience in the medical field or medical testing and had run an axe throwing lounge and a photography studio,” according to the AP .

Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum filed the suit accusing CCC of “deceptively marketing testing services and for violating Oregon’s Unlawful Trade Practices Act.”

As noted in the complaint, “CCC started as a single test site located in Siyaj’s former axe throwing lounge,” and within a year’s time “opened approximately 300 test sites across the United States, including 5 sites in Oregon” without scaling up its facilities.

Scorecard: The case was recently filed and has not reached a resolution.

Takeaway: “Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson sued the CCC in January, accusing it of improperly handling tests and providing fake results,” per AP , which notes that CCC is also being investigated by the FBI and Illinois public health authorities.

The CCC’s phone number has been disconnected. The website reads “Closed Indefinitely.”

The Case: Two lawsuits allege that the city of San Diego was “responsible for significant injuries caused by poorly maintained roads and sidewalks,” according to the Associated Press .

Tourist Diana Greenwood tripped and fell in La Jolla. Marguerite Coats fell in Clairemont. The case was set to go before a Superior Court judge. 

Scorecard: San Diego has settled the suits. The city council unanimously approved a payout of $250,000 to Greenwood and $150,000 to Coats.

Takeaway: A recent audit found that “San Diego could significantly reduce the nearly $25 million a year it spends on lawsuit payouts if it invests in better employee training and deeper analyses of risks,” the The San Diego Union Tribune reported.

Auditors also noted that the city should invest in sidewalk repairs and improved intersections. Between 2010 and 2018, San Diego handled about 20,000 claims and lawsuits.

The Case: In 2010, Meso Scale Diagnostics sued Roche Diagnostics, alleging a breach of license for patents relating to lab testing machines, according to court documents .

The judge determined that Meso was not a party to an earlier license agreement.

In 2017, Roche sued Meso, arguing that an earlier agreement did not convey rights asserted. Meso countersued for patent infringement and won over $137 million in damages. Roche challenged the decision, which the district court denied.

The case then moved up to the U.S. Federal Appeals Court in Delaware.

Scorecard: The Appeals Court has overturned the $137 million verdict and has ordered a new damages trial, according to Reuters .

Takeaway: In a split panel decision, the court found that “Roche’s cobas diagnostic machines did not violate Meso Scale Diagnostics LLC’s rights in parts of three lab-testing patents Roche had been found to infringe,” per reporting by Reuters . The case goes back to court. &

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When an employee steals from their company, what should the employer do?

What even the most proficient risk professionals might not know is that employee theft can affect businesses of any type and size. The U.S. Department of Commerce reports companies lose $50 billion each year to employee theft, and such activity causes one in three bankruptcies. And that’s not to mention the new ways employees are accessing funds and other items.

“Traditionally, the biggest Crime & Fidelity exposure has been embezzlement by employees. This has been employee dishonesty. For example, employees setting up fraudulent accounts and having the company pay them to accounts that were not valid, or overpay,” said James Kardaras, Senior Director of Crime & Fidelity at Nationwide. “But now, electronic crime [criminal activity involving the use of computers or electronic means, to illegally transfer funds or steal, change or erase electronically stored data] is sharply on the rise.”

Given these expanding criminal trends, risk professionals should be securing the protection of a comprehensive Crime &Fidelity policy. But what exactly should they be looking for in their coverage and in their underwriter? Before investing in a Crime & Fidelity policy, it is essential that insureds consider the following.

James Kardaras, Senior Director of Crime & Fidelity, Nationwide

Current advances in technology allow bad actors to exploit a very dangerous tool: the Internet. Enabled on virtually every computer and smart phone, the Internet provides criminals with round-the-clock access to electronic data, resulting in rapidly increasing losses to insureds.

“When you have people outside the institution able to remotely access computers at a bank, for example, and divert funds, little by little, from the employee to other accounts outside the institution, you have this very real, very new risk that no one even thought about years ago,” said Kardaras.

Social engineering is a noteworthy growing trend, as more bad actors are succeeding in their criminal enterprises using this approach. “Social engineering fraud, otherwise known as fraudulently induced funds transfers, occurs when a criminal assumes someone else’s identity induces an individual within the institution to transfer or wire funds to an unauthorized account controlled by the embezzler,” Kardaras explained.

“Criminals can assume your identity using information readily available on social media, whether on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, because the more public information about you that’s out there, the more easily your identity can be stolen,” he said. “People purport to be an employee and they’re not. People purport to be a vendor and they’re not. People purport to be a customer or a client and they’re not.”

Sophisticated criminals continue to up the ante even further. Using “deepfake” technology, criminals have the technology to send a fake but flawless video messages from a company’s president or CFO giving authorization to transfer funds.

Up-to-date forms are a must. “Some computer crime policies date back to the ’90s as a base form. But a lot has changed since then, both with the technology and the tools criminals use to defraud insureds,” Kardaras explained. A comprehensive Crime & Fidelity policy should include modernized language that provides the insured protection for emergent risks.

Risk managers and their brokers should seek to procure a policy that provides coverage for the different types of employee theft – from electronic crimes to social engineering fraud.

In addition, because such criminal activities often extend into ransomware and demands for cryptocurrency payment, risk managers and brokers should seek a Crime & Fidelity policy that addresses those threats in coordination with coverage that may be provided for same under the insured’s cyber policy.

Additionally, criminal hackers commonly try to extort their victim when demanding ransom. “Insureds should therefore be cognizant of whether the Crime & Fidelity policy they are seeking to purchase provides coverage for extortion or alternatively contains an exclusion that would expressly preclude it.”

Risk professionals, when going to market for a Crime & Fidelity partner, should be proactive and already have certain controls in place to demonstrate they are a favorable risk to underwrite. Kardaras advised that when an insured knows their own exposures and can relay that to the carrier, the application and underwriting processes become that much smoother.

“The carrier needs to evaluate a full application, because they are covering internal exposures,” Kardaras explained. “Insurers can’t simply amass information about the company from public information; rather the company must set out the scope of the risk via the carrier’s full application.”

A full application likely poses the following types of critical questions: What internal risk controls are currently in place with regard to money, securities and other property? What authority do employees have to handle funds and up to what threshold? At what level is dual authorization required to release payment of funds?

With regard to larger firms, maintaining an internal audit department is key to being viewed as a favorable risk.

“If a large, sophisticated insured doesn’t have an internal audit department, to me, that would be a non-starter for providing coverage,” Kardaras said. On the other hand, “smaller firms that may not have the staff for an internal audit team,” he added, “should be able to provide the carrier with a complete picture of how, and to what extent, fund requests from employees, vendors and customers are authenticated by the insured.”

A final piece of the risk-ready puzzle can come down to how a potential insured trains its employees. Much like in the cybersecurity space, companies can train their employees to spot potential or attempted electronic crimes.

“Nationwide employs a questionnaire as a tool to help businesses become more aware of how well-trained their employees are,” said Kardaras. “Phishing education and testing employees once a year on cyber readiness is an important element of mitigating their exposure. Our questionnaire asks about that training and evaluates the staff’s preparedness for potential cyber crimes and attacks.”

Once risk professionals become familiar with the Crime & Fidelity landscape, it’s time to find the right coverage partner. That partner should be well-versed in the space, while also constantly and consistently evaluating the emerging trends to bring the best solutions to clients each day.

The Crime and Fidelity team at Nationwide prides itself on those very things.

The Crime & Fidelity business at Nationwide was developed to complement its established D&O liability, professional liability and cyber liability policies. Nationwide brought in Kardaras seeking to capitalize on his extensive and varied Crime & Fidelity background on both the brokering and underwriting sides. Kardaras has successfully employed this vast knowledge and experience, providing Nationwide clients with the Crime & Fidelity protection essential as criminal activity continues to rapidly grow and evolve.

“Nationwide’s Crime & Fidelity team works closely with brokers and risk managers to provide real time information and terminology,” Kardaras explains. “Our Crime & Fidelity team works in tandem with our cyber, D&O and Financial Institutions colleagues and we are well-versed on the potential overlapping risks and coverage solutions. We endeavor to be flexible and solution-oriented in our coverage. For example, if we straddle the border between cyber liability and computer crime, Nationwide will find a solution that provides our insureds with protection tailored to their needs.”

To learn more, visit: https://www.nationwide.com/business/insurance/commercial-crime/.

This article was produced by the R&I Brand Studio, a unit of the advertising department of Risk & Insurance, in collaboration with Nationwide. The editorial staff of Risk & Insurance had no role in its preparation.

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