As we wrap up another year, we’re filled with gratitude for the incredible sorority women, leaders, and volunteers who make your organizations so strong.
This month’s newsletter is full of important information. Read the whole thing or check out the following sections that are pertinent to your role:
- Skip to the housing section where this month we’re reminding you about preparing for winter break, and we’re sharing our Winter Weather Bulletin in case you missed it.
- Click straight through to the chapter services section for an explainer on additional insured.
- Or jump to our special section this month covering some winter reminders for drivers.
The November newsletter is full of important information. Read the whole thing or check out the following sections that are pertinent to your role:
- Skip to the housing section where this month we’re reminding you about preparing for Thanksgiving break, and we’re talking about flu season.
- Click straight through to the chapter services section for a new resource for event planning and an explainer on additional insured.
- Or jump to our special sections this month covering some risk management reminders for drivers and for cyber risks.
Check out the 2024 Winter Weather Bulletin for important winter weather risk management reminders.
Fall has officially arrived, and this issue of the newsletter is full of important resources. Read the whole thing or check out the following sections that are pertinent to your role:
- Skip to the housing section where this month we’re reminding you about how best to manage your chapter and house corporation funds, and we’re talking about wind and hail claims (again!).
- Click straight through to the chapter services section for our new Event Planning Toolkit.
- Or jump to our special sections this month covering some risk management reminders for drivers and for cyber risks.
Fall has officially arrived, and this issue of the newsletter is full of important resources. Read the whole thing or check out the following sections that are pertinent to your role:
- Skip to the housing section where this month we’re talking about how to tell the difference between employees and independent contracts (and why that is important), wind and hail claims (again!), sharing an important webinar about adapting our chapter houses, and discussing Campus Fire Safety Month.
- Click straight through to the chapter services section for a new event planning resource and to learn more about our redesigned Coverages section of our website.
- Or jump to our special section for this month on cyber where we share a webinar covering what is called Business Email Compromise (BEC)– a type of cyber attack that is among the most prevalent.
Learn more about designing chapter houses with adaptability in mind in this webinar with our partners at Luminaut.
ACH transactions are electronic money transfers made between banks and credit unions across the Automated Clearing House (ACH) network. While convenient and sometimes appropriate, you should NEVER fulfill a request to wire money from an email alone. Below are some examples of language vetted by a cyber law firm that can be helpful to include in your email signature as notice of your organization’s best cyber practices on this topic:
- [CLIENT] will never send an email requesting that wiring, ACH, or other payment instructions be changed or altered. if you receive a similar request from anyone, you should always confirm billing or payment instructions with a known contact in person or, if not possible, over the phone, so that you can confirm the identity of the sender. If you ever receive or have received a request from [client] regarding payment instructions via email only, please reach out to a known contact at [CLIENT] in person or by phone. Always contact our main number and do not utilize the phone number in the email you receive.
- Never wire transfer money based on an email request from our office without calling this office and speaking with someone personally to confirm wire information. When calling, do not use the phone number from the e-mail signature line. Even if an email looks like it has come from this office, or someone involved in your transaction, do not accept emailed wire instructions from anyone without voice verification. You will never be instructed to wire money related to a payment without verbal consent.
In this issue of News & Notes, our monthly newsletter, we cover the following topics: wind and hail claims, handling food allergies, sharing recent sprinkler system webinar, notice about new version of Insurance Summary, sharing new event planning self-guided presentation, and a cyber webinar.
Over the past several years, the United States has been plagued by property-related catastrophes, including, but not limited to, hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, convective storms, frigid temperatures, excessive snowstorms, hailstorms and wildfires. The sorority houses insured under the MJ Sorority Insurance Program have not been immune to these unfortunate events with a tornado significantly damaging two sorority chapter houses in 2022 and forty-four freeze claims in December 24-25, 2022.
Due to billions of dollars in paid insurance claims, all insurance carriers are struggling with how to handle the situation. Regardless of your current deductible, MJ Sorority appreciates your claims submissions, even if they will not meet your deductible. This information helps us provide historical data to our carrier, ensuring that we can communicate accurately the impact that these changing weather patterns, especially in wind and hail, have had on the program’s insured properties.
If your property suffers wind and hail damage, please be sure to contact us.
Sorority Program Claims
Example 1
The insured received a fraudulent email they thought was from their contractor providing a new account number to send a payment to. Using the new account number, the insured sent an ACH payment of approximately $800,000. The contractor contacted the insured when they didn’t receive the payment. The payment had cleared from the insured’s account which led both parties to realize the funds had been misrouted.
The initial payment was issued on a Friday. It cleared the insured’s account on the following Monday. The insured and contractor figured out the funds were sent to a fraudulent account on Tuesday and the bank was immediately notified. Luckily the bank was able to recover the funds since the were notified so quickly.
Example 2
The insured was emailing with a vendor on mailing their payment to a PO Box vs the vendor’s street address as road constructing was delaying delivery. Shortly after agreeing to mail the payment to a PO Box, the insured received another email asking the insured to instead wire to money to speed up the process. The email asking for a wire was fraudulent. The string of emails between the vendor and our insured was somehow infiltrated. One letter in the email address of the vendor was changed and the insured did not catch it. The payment in question was almost $300,000.
It took several months, but the bank was able to recover the funds.