Market volatility often dominates conversations about wealth. Yet recent financial commentary suggests that everyday personal risk may pose a more immediate and lasting threat. A widely shared analysis highlighted how uninsured or underinsured events, such as liability claims or property losses, can disrupt financial plans far more quickly than market fluctuations.
Unison Risk Advisors
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Cybersecurity Threats Family Offices Can't Ignore
Cybersecurity is often framed as a technology issue. For family offices, it is something more personal. A cyber incident can affect finances, privacy, reputation and in some cases, physical safety.
Family offices sit at the intersection of wealth, discretion and information. They manage sensitive financial records, governance documents, personal identifiers, travel details and access to liquid capital. Many do so with lean teams and informal processes. That combination can make family offices appealing targets for cybercriminals.
The most significant cyber threats facing family offices today are not theoretical. They are practical, persistent and increasingly designed around how families live and operate.
Cybercriminals Target People, Not Just Systems
Unlike large institutions, family offices are rarely hit by broad, indiscriminate attacks. Instead, they are often targeted through social engineering, phishing and impersonation schemes that exploit trust.
Emails that appear to come from a family principal, executive assistant, or trusted advisor can prompt wire transfers, credential changes or the sharing of sensitive documents. In many cases, attackers observe communication patterns for weeks before acting. The success of these attacks has less to do with technical sophistication and more to do with human behavior.
For family offices, cyber risk often begins at the personal level through a phone call, a convincing email or a sense of urgency.
Concentrated Information Increases the Stakes
Family offices hold an extraordinary amount of information in one place. This often includes net worth statements, trust and estate documents, insurance schedules, legal agreements, medical details, travel itineraries and home addresses.
Unlike corporate data, this information is deeply personal and difficult to replace once exposed. A single breach can trigger identity theft, extortion attempts, reputational harm, legal exposure and long‑term privacy loss. For families with public profiles or operating businesses, stolen data can also be misused to support physical security threats or targeted litigation.
The risk is not just data loss. It is the loss of control over information that defines a family’s financial and personal life.
Informal Processes Create Hidden Vulnerabilities
Many family offices value flexibility and efficiency. Unfortunately, informality can also introduce cyber vulnerabilities.
Shared passwords, unsecured personal devices, limited access controls and undocumented procedures are common, particularly in smaller or growing offices. When a small group manages everything from bill pay to travel to investments, personal and professional systems can blur quickly.
Cyber incidents often occur not because risk is ignored, but because infrastructure has not kept pace with complexity.
Third‑Party Access Is a Common Entry Point
Family offices rarely operate in isolation. Attorneys, accountants, investment managers, concierge services, household staff and technology vendors often have access to sensitive information or systems.
Each additional relationship expands the attack surface. A breach does not need to originate inside the family office to cause damage. It can begin with a vendor or advisor whose security controls were never fully reviewed. Once inside, attackers may move laterally toward higher‑value targets.
Cyber resilience is often influenced by the weakest external connection.
Cyber Incidents Can Become Financial Events Quickly
Cyber events are often discussed as privacy concerns, but for family offices they can escalate into material financial events.
Unauthorized transfers, ransomware demands, fraudulent disbursements and recovery costs can add up quickly. Families may also face expenses related to forensic investigations, legal counsel, public relations support and credit monitoring. In some cases, incidents expose gaps or misunderstandings within insurance programs families assumed would respond.
Without planning, cyber risk can move from inconvenience to capital impairment with little warning.
Insurance Is an Important, but Often Misunderstood, Backstop
Many families assume cyber risk is addressed somewhere in their insurance program. Often, it is not or not in the way they expect.
Personal lines, excess liability, homeowners and business policies may address portions of cyber exposure, but coverage is frequently fragmented. Policy triggers, sublimits, exclusions and differences between personal and commercial cyber policies can leave families exposed during a loss.
At Unison, we see value in reviewing cyber insurance as part of a broader personal risk conversation rather than relying on assumptions. Aligning coverage with a family’s digital footprint, lifestyle exposure and operational structure can help clarify how risk transfer fits into the overall picture.
Cybersecurity as Personal Risk Management
Resilient family offices tend to share a common mindset. They treat cybersecurity as a component of personal risk management, alongside insurance, privacy, liability, governance and continuity planning.
Access is intentionally limited. Information sharing is deliberate. Roles are defined in advance. Insurance programs are reviewed regularly. Responsibility is clear before an incident occurs, not during one.
This approach does not remove risk, but it helps preserve options and control when something goes wrong.
Final Thought: Cyber Risk Is a Family Risk
Cyber incidents rarely stay contained. They can affect spouses, children, family businesses, reputations and long‑standing relationships. For family offices, cybersecurity is not about technology alone. It is about protecting people, privacy and long‑term stability.
Families that acknowledge this reality and plan accordingly are better positioned to navigate an increasingly digital and increasingly adversarial environment.
Topics: Risk Management Unison Risk Advisors Cyber
3 min read
Controlling Employee Benefits Costs with Captive Insurance
When employee benefits costs keep climbing, it’s hard for employers to feel in control. Rising medical costs, more high-cost claims, and the growing use of specialty drugs gene therapies all hit the bottom line, leaving many employers feeling like they are just watching the numbers go up.
Topics: Employee Benefits Small Employee Benefits Group Unison Risk Advisors
3 min read
Health Insurance and Plan Choices are Key to Retention
Employee benefits have become a key part of the hiring and retention of employees in today’s hiring market. There is increased stress on compensation as demand for higher salaries and pay rates come from potential hires and the existing workforce.
An employer’s willingness to put the time and effort into their employee’s benefits outside of wages may make the difference. At a high level, total compensation and employee benefits includes, but is not limited to, health insurance, wellness programs, life insurance, and retirement or defined benefit plans.
Health Insurance
Health insurance can provide employees compensation in the form of reducing out of pocket exposure when it comes to their healthcare needs and access to providers.
Health insurance typically accounts for one of the largest Profit & Loss (P&L) expenses for an employer outside of payroll. Typically, there is a cost share for this expense (the insurance premium) between the employees and the employer. Benchmark data from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) stated that in 2025, the average employer share of this expense was 75%, leaving the employees with 25% percent of the premium responsibility deducted out of their payroll. Companies could argue that they are essentially compensating their employees by covering a larger percentage of their health benefits premium on top of what they pay them through payroll.
As companies have found it more difficult to create higher payroll, some have decided to take on more of the premium burden, leaving employees with more payroll to spend on other things such as living expenses. However, health insurance premiums have gone up significantly – raising more than seven percent on average.
These renewal increases are driven by a couple primary factors. Among the biggest is the rising cost of prescription drugs overall, the increasing popularity of GLP-1 drugs, and expensive gene and cellular therapies, according to HRExecutive.com.
PPO Vs. HSA Plans – Your Choices May Impact Employee Retention
The receipt of such unfavorable increases has driven companies to reconsider the plans they provide to their employees. Preferred Provider Organizations (PPO) plans offer broader network, copays for doctor’s visits (primary care), as well as specialists covered under the network and prescriptions. Health Savings Account (HSA) plans are high-deductible health plans (HDHP: exceeding $1,400 for individual deductible and $2,800 in family deductible) and require the user to cover the deductible expense out of pocket before the plan contributes to the medical expenses at a coinsurance. PPO plans typically charge higher premiums but require less out of pocket expenses because of their copay structure. HSA plans typically charge less premium but require more of an up-front, out-of-pocket expense to reach the deductible limit. Additionally, they offer the user a pre-tax way to put aside money for qualified medical expenses, defined by the plan.
When faced with such material increases, companies look to transition to plans with cheaper premiums – i.e. higher deductibles, smaller networks (i.e. HMO, EPO, etc.) – and migrate their employees to plans that may create less expense for the company. However, employers often overlook the headache that such a change may cause for their employees. For instance, if you are an employee used to paying a $30 copay for a doctor’s visit under a PPO plan but now must foot the entirety of the doctor’s visit bill until you reach your deductible under an HSA plan, that may cause some stress. Further, if an employer moves to a narrower network to reduce premium, which causes a major local hospital system to be considered out-of-network and not covered by the plan, the HR director will be facing some tough conversations with employees.
These changes, which seem like the right thing to do on the surface, cause more employees to seek other places of employment, even more so than higher wages. Therefore, before making changes in your benefits offerings – carefully analyze your options and potential outcomes. The use of an experienced insurance broker will help do just that.
Many HR professionals have experience with their own population of employees, payroll and benefits at some level. However, the vast differences in health insurance carriers, networks, plans, and benchmarks requires the use of an objective third-party with extensive employee benefits knowledge.
Topics: Risk Management Employee Benefits Health & Human Services Unison Risk Advisors
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Workers' Compensation Claim Costs are Rising: What Self-Insured Employers Need to Know
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Hurricane Preparedness for Businesses: Protecting People and Organizations
Written by Gregory M Hart, ARM, CHSP, CIC, CRM, ALCM
Hurricanes can disrupt business operations well beyond coastal regions.
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How Employers Can Support Women's Health and Well-Being in the Workplace
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