At the request of state regulators, Anthem has agreed to offer a special minor credit freeze program to parents and legal guardians of minors whose information was involved in the 2015 cyber attack against the company.
The company said in a statement that although there was no proof that anyone's information was misused, it nonetheless was offering this “extra layer of protection” for children's personal information.
Anthem said that, working with the three nationwide consumer credit reporting agencies – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion – it was offering a program to allow a credit freeze for children across all three bureaus. Anthem said that it would cover the cost of the credit freeze for this program as well as the cost of removing the credit freeze at a later date.
As part of this program, Anthem said, it also would offer to reimburse parents or legal guardians who paid for a credit freeze for their child after the announcement of Anthem's cyber attack. In addition, for those children who became adults after January 27, 2015, Anthem said that it would provide reimbursements for setting an adult credit freeze now.
Anthem said that it would mail notification to parents and legal guardians of impacted minors, or to those who were minors on January 27, 2015 and who now are adults, in the coming weeks. According to the company, the letter will contain instructions about how to request the minor credit freeze from each of the credit reporting companies, or how to request reimbursement, as applicable. The instructions also will be posted to www.AnthemFacts.com.
Following the announcement of the cyber attack, state insurance regulators began a multi-state exam into the incident. State insurance regulators have asked Anthem to provide this credit freeze offer as part of the conclusion of that investigation. Anthem said that it was pleased that as part of the investigation the examiners found that “Anthem appeared to have taken reasonable measures” prior to the data breach to protect its computer network and data, and that no fine or penalty was warranted.