Court Rules Healthcare Data Breach Covered Under CGL Policy

A Monday court decision added a significant victory for insurance policyholders to an issue with very little existing case law.
In an unpublished opinion, a panel of the Fourth Circuit ruled that Travelers Co. must defend medical records company Portal Healthcare against a claim that its failure to properly secure servers lead to a data breach in which unauthorized users were given access to private records. Travelers must settle the claim under the commercial general liability policy it extended to Portal Healthcare, the panel said.