Developing a Compliant Document Archive System in Changing Times

Technology can help ease the burden of creating and storing information, however new technology poses several important compliance and archiving questions. For example, ten years ago, correspondence and internal memos related to a particular client account or specific broker were largely paper based and would have been stored together in a physical folder. However today, more communication is now conducted via electronic means. Should electronic communications be stored too? If so, how should they be stored, where should they be stored and how long should they be stored? Similarly, social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are generating new issues, mostly in the sales and marketing area. Do you save comments left by sales representatives or customers? If an insurance broker makes an offer through Facebook, is an insurance agency accountable to deliver on it?

The fluidity of electronic communications and the number of devices that now support them also create new challenges for document security. Providing access to insurance databases or client records creates a potential security risk. The types of client information insurance companies keep can be extremely sensitive, yet in the wrong hands it can be transmitted around the world today in a matter of seconds.