It is important to note that someaffected by the data breach may not have had a plan throughDominion National, but had a plan for which Dominion National was athird-party administrator. (Credit: Koldunov/Shutterstock)

The Delaware Department of Insurance announced it received anotice of a data security breach suffered by Dominion National, aninsurer and administrator of dental and vision benefits. On April24, 2019, through its investigation of an internal alert, DominionNational discovered that servers containing enrollment data,demographic details, personal information of consumers, planproducers and health care providers may have been accessed by anunauthorized party.

The investigation determined that the unauthorized access mayhave occurred as early as Aug. 25, 2010. Dominion National advisedthe Department of Insurance that they responded immediately bycleaning the affected servers and initiating a comprehensive reviewof data stored on or potentially accessible from the servers.

“Upon receiving notice of this breach, I asked that our marketconduct division begin an investigation to learn all of the factsbehind this incident,” Commissioner Trinidad Navarro said in astatement. “The Department of Insurance will determine ifappropriate safeguards were in place, and if private consumerinformation was handled properly.”

Compromised information

On June 17, 2019, the review determined that the potentiallycompromised information might include the following data: names,addresses, dates of birth, email addresses, Social Securitynumbers, taxpayer identification numbers, bank account and routingnumbers, member ID numbers, group numbers and subscriber names ofwhat amounts to 10% of Delaware's population. It is important tonote that some affected by the data breach may not have had a planthrough Dominion National, but had a plan for which DominionNational was a third-party administrator.

According to Dominion National, there is “no evidence that anyinformation was in fact accessed, acquired or misused.” The companyhas implemented enhanced monitoring and alerting software and isproviding two years of free credit monitoring and fraud protectionservices for all individuals potentially impacted by theincident.