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Auto insurance? Check. Homeowner’s insurance? Check. Life insurance? Check. Twitter insurance? -- Say what?
Insure Against Reckless Tweeting
Leave it to insurance agents to add Tweeting to a long list of reckless behaviors plaguing society. Frankly, I’m not surprised that insurance designed to protect companies from the damage caused by damaging Tweets exists -- only that it took them so long.
After all, people say some dumb stuff. Some of it is on Twitter. Why not protect yourself against the inevitable? Thanks to the Kiln Group, an insurance specialist underwriting firm at Lloyds of London, a company can insure its brand against privacy issues, intellectual property infringement and defamation. Companies with the insurance could pay $100,000 for $10 million in coverage.
If You Can't Handle the Tweet...
While there is probably a viable market for Twitter insurance (as Gilbert Godfried, Courtney Love and Kenneth Cole have demonstrated), it’s not entirely clear how it would work. Policies would have to be rather broad or vague to be able to keep up with social media’s rapidly evolving culture. As well, it’s doubtful that most law firms have the staffing needed to properly monitor a company’s brand online. They can barely keep up with e-Discovery.
Twitter insurance may be this week’s meme, but it shouldn’t take itself too seriously. Companies that are so worried about their brand’s reputation that they invest in insurance, rather than employee brand ambassadors, probably shouldn’t be on Twitter in the first place.
