Hiring hackers to keep their organisation safe from cyber threats is just one of the expectations organisations operating in the international private medical insurance (IPMI) industry should have of the third-party administrators (TPAs) they engage.
This is according to Sylvain Charpilienne, managing director at ExpaTPA, who kicked off Health & Protection’s IPMI Summit at Easthampstead Park Hotel in Wokingham today.
Charpilienne explained that must haves for 21st century TPAs should include the offer of a 100% digital journey for customers, a worldwide network with agreements with hospitals all over the world – particularly those most frequented by expats and agreements with local agents across the globe.
But he added they should also offer the facility of real time payments via transaction cards such as Mastercard and should not be in competition with their customer – either a competitor themselves or owned by a competitor.
And they should have IPMI expertise and offer artificial intelligence (AI) fraud detection and even have hackers that can test for cyber threats.
“A lot of TPAs and other types of organisations get hacked or there are attempts of hacking all the time,” Charpilienne said.
“And some are ill prepared and some get hacked and have at the least a disruption to their operations.
“So there are attempts all the time.
“There is too much at stake. We talk about systems that handle money, private information, and it’s so easy to do from a hacking perspective.”
According to Charpilienne, TPAs should create an environment where there is the least possibility a hack could happen and the system must be completely secure from any type of attempt.
“One anti-hacking measure is to have hackers of your own and to build a team of people who are paid by the company to attack itself and to do this all the time,” he continued.
“They report back and say, ‘Here we have a problem because here’s what could happen theoretically. We can do this. We can do that.’
“The TPA you’re working with should have a strong IT team with a certain number of specialities including the hacking experience.”