Zurich Insurance loses personal data for British customers

It has been revealed that Zürich Insurance has lost a data tape which held the personal details of 51,000 of the company's British customers. The revelation comes more than a year after the tape was lost in transit from South Africa and there are concerns that the company, while admitting the error to the regulatory authorities some time ago, has not yet been in touch with customers to warn them of potential ID theft implications.



While the tape also contained policy details for 550,000 customers in South Africa, 40,000 in Botswana as well as the UK data it is a mystery as to why the company has been so slow coming forward. When you consider that some of the data lost included personal contact information, addresses, telephone numbers and bank sort codes the situation is certainly critical and should have been relayed to customers as soon as possible.



This is yet another disaster for the UK financial sector, with data loss now occurring on a regular basis across the industry. The fact that this particular incident was not flagged to the company's customers at an earlier stage is a concern and many believe that the regulator also has to explain its position.