sfrench | 4:18 pm Feb 8, 2012

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Have you insured your digital assets against loss, theft or breakage?

People buy insurance to minimize the effect of bad things happening

There are certain things in life that we pay to insure against – loss, theft or breakage – even though the odds (based on actuary tables) are pretty low that we’ll ever collect on the policy. This phenomenon was explained clearly in an economics class I took a long time ago. Most people don’t like it when unpredictable, bad things happen and will pay money to minimize the financial impact of incidents such as a car accident, home fire, illness and lost or stolen jewelry.

Given this, why don’t more people buy coverage (protection) for their digital assets – personal memories (e.g., family photos & videos), media collection, financial and personal records?

What are my digital assets worth?

Not surprisingly, many people place a high value on their digital assets, especially their personal memories, which many people consider priceless because in most cases they are irreplaceable.

The table below (SOURCE: McAfee “Digital Assets” Survey) shows that on average (globally) individuals value their digital assets at over $37,000, with the largest asset being personal memories at nearly $19,000. Regionally, North American respondents (U.S. and Canada) had the highest perceived value of their total digital assets, with an average cited value of $52,154. The value assigned to digital assets is higher than that of most cars we own, or the wife’s engagement ring – yet we insure these items, while most folks still don’t insure against loss of family photos, videos of our children growing up or that massive digital music collection.

How do I insure my digital assets?

You might ask how does one actually insure their digital assets. In the past some individuals backed up their computers to local, external hard drives, and dealt with the frustration of manually transferring contacts from their old mobile phone to their new one. But, as people now own multiple devices (home & work PC, tablet, etc.) and smartphones have evolved into small-form computers holding contacts, photos, music, videos, work files, etc., it is becoming increasingly complex for users to backup and access all their content across all their devices. Plus, backing up all your content locally is not wise, as you could lose that backup to theft, fire or breakage.

The better option is to automatically sync your always changing (and growing) digital asset collection to the cloud. Not only is it easier to backup all your devices to the cloud than manually doing so, but the protected copy is offsite (just like major corporations have a copy of their data someplace other than the workplace), and you can also access this cloud content from any connected device – something that is more difficult with external hard drives.

There are now a multitude of cloud-based content sync solutions available – offered by OEM device makers, mobile operators and third-party application providers. Each has plusses and minuses to their solutions. At a high level, you want to look for the following attributes of any content backup service:

1. Make sure your content is actually being synced to the cloud. Many options simply ‘sync’ content to a PC or external hard drive at home, which defeats the offsite requirement. Click HERE to read more about various content sync paradigms.
2. Find a reputable cloud provider.  This day and age the market is filled with providers interested more in making a quick financial exit than providing a long lasting, sustainable service.  You don’t want your content to simply disappear if the company goes out of business. Even if you get the content back, it will be a real hassle to move it to another service.
3. Look for simplicity of use.  Simplicity is critical as most people won’t use the service if it’s too complex. You should be able to easily setup the service on each device during startup and then just forget about it – letting the service sync content automatically in the background.
4. Broad device support. Find a service that covers all your devices – not just someone’s software OS or device of the day.   
5. Easy access.  A big value of the cloud is anytime, anywhere access.  Make sure this is an option.  After all, who doesn’t want to show off all their baby photos in the cloud to their co-workers
6. Cheap isn’t always better.  Cost is important of course, but don’t necessarily go with the cheapest option. The first 5 attributes are the most important, and the cost should generally be in line with that of similar services.

What are you waiting for?

Stuff happens – hard drive failure, a young child pulling on a chord in the office, dumping that latte on my tablet – which could lead to the loss of what I consider to be priceless, irreplaceable memories. If you aren’t already protecting your valuable digital assets by backing them up to the cloud, then I recommend you take some time this coming weekend to do so.