IT & Cybersecurity for Insurance Agencies
An insurance agency runs on other people's most sensitive paperwork — applications, claims, financial and medical detail — moving through email all day between clients, carriers and premium finance companies. That traffic is exactly what impersonation fraud is built for, and regulators know it: New York's DFS cybersecurity regulation reaches licensed producers, and carriers increasingly ask agencies the same security questions agencies ask insureds. NetSys builds agency IT around those facts, and sells the answer the way agents will appreciate: month to month, with what's covered written down.
The short answer
NetSys provides managed IT and cybersecurity to insurance agencies and brokerages: identity hardening with multifactor authentication and conditional access, email threat defense tuned for carrier and client impersonation and premium-payment fraud, managed endpoint detection and response, 24/7 monitoring, uptime and access management for your agency management system, secure document exchange instead of ACORD forms as bare attachments, and immutable backups with restores that are tested and timed. For New York-licensed producers we implement and evidence the technical controls behind 23 NYCRR 500 obligations — access controls, MFA, monitoring, incident response documentation — while interpreting the regulation and deciding what your agency files stays with you and your counsel. Every agreement is month to month.
Sound familiar?
- Client financial and medical detail moving through email all day, every day
- Impersonation fraud dressed as a carrier, a client, or a premium finance company
- A DFS cybersecurity certification due annually, with nobody sure what they'd be certifying
- An agency management system that is the whole business, backed up by assumption
- Producers working from home and their own devices, outside the office's controls
- Carrier security questionnaires that now read like the ones underwriters send insureds
Fraud-Resistant Email & Identity
- Multifactor authentication and conditional access on every account
- Email defense tuned for lookalike carrier domains and reply-chain hijacking
- Alerts on inbox rules that quietly forward or delete mail — the classic precursor
- An out-of-band callback procedure for any change to payment instructions, written down
DFS-Aligned Controls, With Evidence
- The technical safeguards behind 23 NYCRR 500: access control, MFA, monitoring
- An incident response plan written before it's needed
- Evidence organized so the annual certification is answered from records
- Interpretation and filings stay with your counsel — we supply the controls and the proof
Agency System Uptime & Access
- Your agency management system monitored, patched, and access-controlled
- Producer onboarding and same-day offboarding when someone leaves for a competitor
- Personal and home devices fenced away from client records via conditional access
- Secure client-document exchange instead of applications sent as attachments
Continuity You Have Measured
- Immutable backups covering the agency management system and document store
- Restores performed, timed and dated — not merely reported as green
- A written recovery-time objective, so renewal season has a real answer
- 100% of NetSys clients hit by ransomware have fully recovered
An agency owner, a DFS certification, and a blank page
A composite example of work we do, written so you can picture the first 90 days. It is not a specific client — our real, named engagements are in case studies.
A New York-licensed agency with a dozen staff got its annual reminder: the cybersecurity certification was due. The owner had signed it the year before on the strength of an antivirus subscription and good intentions, and did not want to sign it that way twice.
- An inventory of the controls the regulation asks about, mapped to what the agency had and lacked
- Multifactor authentication rolled out across email, the agency management system and remote access
- Managed endpoint protection on office and producer machines
- Email defense plus a written callback rule for any change to premium payment instructions
- An incident response plan and an evidence folder, so the certification answers from records
The owner signed the next certification over documentation instead of hope. The evidence folder now updates itself as a side effect of how the systems run, which is what the regulation wanted all along.
Insurance Agencies & Brokers IT FAQs
Do you work with insurance agencies and brokerages?
Yes — agencies sit squarely in the professional-services practice we run for accounting and advisory firms: businesses whose entire inventory is sensitive client information moving through email and one line-of-business system. The service covers the environment end to end: helpdesk, 24/7 monitoring, identity and email security, endpoint detection and response, your agency management system, and tested backups.
Can you help with the NY DFS cybersecurity regulation (23 NYCRR 500)?
We implement and operate the technical safeguards the regulation describes — access controls, multifactor authentication, monitoring, encryption, incident response documentation — and we keep the evidence organized so the annual certification is answered from records. What we deliberately do not do is practice law: interpreting your obligations, exemptions and filings stays with your agency and its counsel. What you get from us is the control set and the proof it runs.
How do you stop premium and payment fraud?
In layers. Multifactor authentication so a stolen password isn't enough. Email defense tuned for lookalike carrier domains and reply-chain hijacking. Alerts on quiet inbox-forwarding rules. And the control that isn't technology at all: a written callback procedure for any change to payment instructions, enforced no matter who appears to be asking.
Our producers work from home on their own laptops. Is that fixable?
Yes, and without buying everyone hardware. Conditional access separates managed devices from personal ones, so client records and the agency management system are reachable from the former while email and lighter work still function from the latter. It's the highest-value control per dollar in most agencies we assess.
Will you name our agency in your marketing?
No. Professional-services clients engage under confidentiality and we honor that in marketing, not just contracts — this page carries no named clients and no invented metrics. References can be arranged privately with a client's consent.
Do you require a long-term contract?
No — every NetSys agreement is month to month. We keep clients by performing rather than by locking them in; retention runs 98%.
Guides for insurance agencies & brokers leaders
Services behind this work
Put fifteen minutes on the calendar.
Tell a NetSys engineer what your environment looks like and where it hurts. You'll get honest answers and a clear next step — no sales pressure, no obligation.