Many life and annuity issuers need to improve the defenses for distribution-related online systems, according to Matthew Josefowicz.
Josefowicz, CEO of Novarica, said Wednesday that the current defenses are much weaker for life and annuity distributors than for the customers.
About 70% of large life and annuity issuers now require customers to log in through a "multi-factor authentication" process, Josefowicz estimated, at a webinar that was part of the Insured Retirement Institute's 20 in 21 online conference.
A multi-factor authentication system requires customers who are trying to log in to confirm their identities using mobile telephones, email accounts or other means.
Only about 40% of large life and annuity issuers require distributors to log in using multi-factor authentication, Josefowicz reported.
"Distributors are very much a weak point," Josefowicz said.
Fraudsters have already made news by scraping property and casualty insurance agent portals for personal information they used in efforts to commit unemployment insurance claim fraud, he said.
Demographic Shift
Josefowicz also talked about how he expects the rise of the millennials to affect the annuity market.
