The “Renewals List” Leak: How a UAE Insurance Firm Lost AED 1.2M Without a Cyberattack
Dec 18, 2025
Client: Mid-Sized General Insurance Provider
Location: Dubai, UAE
Industry: Insurance & Reinsurance
Scale: 215 Users (Sales Agents & Claims Officers)
The Incident (The Costly Wake-Up Call)
Before implementing Anexet, the company allowed agents flexibility to handle customer claims.
- The Breach: A top-performing Sales Manager resigned to join a rival brokerage in Dubai.
- The Method: One week before resigning, they exported the
"Upcoming Renewals Database" (12,000 records) from the CRM to a CSV file, renamed it
"Quarterly_Performance_Review.csv", and emailed it to their personal Hotmail account.
- The Stealth: The file contained Policy Numbers, Expiry Dates, Premium Amounts, and Mobile
Numbers.
What They Lost
-
Financial Loss: Estimated AED 1.2 Million in lost renewal premiums over 3 months.
-
Regulatory Risk: Violation of UAE Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL) regarding customer
privacy.
-
Competitive Edge: Years of relationship building were wiped out in weeks.
The Solution: Anexet DLP
To stop the bleeding, the firm deployed Anexet Data Loss Prevention (DLP) across all endpoints,
specifically targeting their Sales and Claims departments.
The "Save" (Post-Implementation)
Three months later, a Claims Officer attempted to copy 300 scanned Emirates IDs and Passports
to a USB drive (claiming it was for "offline processing").
Anexet’s Action:
-
Keyword Detection: Real-time scanning detected restricted keywords such as
"Emirates ID", "Passport No", and "Policy Date".
- Blocked: The USB transfer was instantly terminated.
-
Just-in-Time Training: A popup explained why the action was blocked
(Policy: PII Protection).
Current Tech Stack
- DLP Solution: Anexet Data Loss Prevention
-
Policy Focus: PII (Emirates ID, Passport #), Credit Card Numbers,
and Bulk Export Detection
-
Channels Secured: USB, Web (WhatsApp Web, WeTransfer), Email, Printer
-
Compliance: UAE PDPL & Insurance Authority (IA) regulations
The Result
- 100% Data Sovereignty: Client data remains within the corporate network.
-
Proactive Defense: Shadow IT (personal email / WhatsApp usage) was identified and blocked.
-
Regulatory Safety: Audit logs prove reasonable measures to protect client data.
The Bottom Line
An agent’s contact list is their asset. The policy data is your asset.
In the competitive UAE insurance market, your data is your revenue.
Anexet locks it down.
