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This article first featured on Business Plus

Anyone who has been the target of a defamatory comment on social media will know how frustrating it can be to get it taken down. Comments can be liked and shared instantly, but the wheels of justice in the tech world turn slowly.

Adrienne O'Sullivan, chief executive of Arag Insurance, says its 'Safer Social' product, available as an add-on to home, car and commercial insurance since last month, has proved very popular since its pilot-launch in late 2023.

O'Sullivan, who has worked in the insurance industry for over 25 years, says: "If you think of it, with your car insurance you have motor assistance, and with your home insurance you have home assistance. This is digital assistance.

"We all live online these days and if somebody is abused online, defamed online or has some very unsavoury photographs [posted] online, our partners will immediately get to work in getting that content taken down, wherever it is, mitigating any losses.

"And if necessary, then we jump in and we write the legal letter to ensure that the different platforms take it down."

Arag has partnered with RiskEye, an Irish firm that specialises in online harm, security and mitigation, for the initiative.

One of the earliest adopters was the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals (NAPD), which has been using it since November 2023.

"You can only imagine the sort of issues teachers and principals face like ratemyteacher.com, this sort of thing," she says. "And there's [been] a lot of issues over the last year. We managed to act immediately, take down content, and write a couple of legal letters because sometimes the platform themselves will use ignorance as an excuse."

The pilot scheme with the NAPD was a big success. "We cannot keep the business from the door," O'Sullivan says. Most of the new businesses are schools that already have policies through insurers such as Allianz and Aviva, but hotels, golf clubs and unions in other sectors have been availing of the cover.

The company offers two levels of cover. The lower level requires the client to alert Arag about online issues. The higher level of cover, which comes at a cost, includes monitoring by RiskEye.

"It's quite an expensive service. So it would be more suited to bigger conglomerates, the likes of the Googles and Microsofts of the world," she says. Arag, which specialises in legal expenses insurance, has 19 companies around the world with its headquarters based in Germany.

"With an Arag legal protection policy, you benefit from day one, because the minute you pay over your premium, you have access to a legal advice helpline," O'Sullivan says.

"So we have lawyers on call 24 hours a day, you have access to counselling, you have access to tax advice immediately, and you have access to legal documents on our website."

The Irish office has roughly one million customers and over half are SMEs. O'Sullivan points out that the vast majority of those have fewer than nine employees, meaning they are unlikely to have HR, legal and tax experts in-house to deal with problems as they arise.

ARAG has also recently added mediation, in conjunction with Mediate Ireland, to help its clients resolve disputes more quickly and cheaply.

"We started a pilot with that in October and we're already recommending mediation to a couple of our clients. It's also ideal for consumer disputes. The carpet's not fitted properly, the washing machine isn't plumbed properly, those sorts of issues that arise between a businessvand a supplier," O'Sullivan says.

Disclaimer - all information in this article was correct at time of publishing.