The source material gives no hard numbers, so the most concrete detail is a timeline: TruStage expects “meaningful progress” in the coming weeks. That’s the headline for partners waiting on word about where recovery stands.
To lay out the roadmap, TruStage CEO Terrance Williams and Chief Business Officer Chris Copeland sat down for a video update. They cover how far the recovery has come, what’s still on the to-do list, and what partners can reasonably expect as the work continues.
They don’t stop at getting systems back online, either. Restoring things is one job. Making sure they hold up next time is another, and the conversation gives both their due. The two leaders talk through TruStage’s financial strength, its investments in security and resilience, and the status of the ongoing investigation into the cyberattack.
They’re also upfront that the work isn’t finished. That candor is useful. A recovery story with no loose ends usually means someone left them out, and this one admits the road continues.
If you’re a TruStage partner, the practical move is simple: watch the update, note the progress expected over the next few weeks, and use it to guide your own planning and your conversations with your TruStage contacts. Questions about timing or security are exactly what those contacts are there for, so bring them.
Transcript
Hello everyone! Thanks for taking the time to watch this video. Our goal here is to provide you an update on where things stand as it relates to the recovery from the cyber event. I want to start by acknowledging that getting back to normal is taking far longer than you. Your teams, your members, and even we would really want.
And we know that the experience still isn’t working the way we want it to. We take responsibility for making things better as quickly as possible while there’s still important work ahead. We’ve made meaningful progress over the last several weeks. You know, up to this point, some of the technical realities of our situation has really created a large amount of uncertainty, too much for us to provide really specific details and timelines with any level of confidence until now.
So today we’re going to dive deeper on several topics. Number one, the strength of our financial position today and in the future, what we’re doing to help customers and our efforts to enhance technology. And then after that, Chris is going to really take you through a timeline, a timeline that really kind of shows our operational recovery, that gives you specifics and insights as to where, when and how.
So I’m not going to pretend or tell you that we have every answer today because we don’t. An example here is the ongoing data investigation. You know, we’re getting closer to the conclusion of the forensics portion of this. And in the coming weeks, we expect to provide you with an update and more insights into our response plans, and we’re committed to doing right by you.
I’ve shared this in the past, but if the investigation determines that member, customer, employee, or partner information was impacted, TruStage will communicate directly with you first, giving you weeks to prepare to review the resources, to understand what actions may be needed, and to provide support to make the process as easy as we can for you. The bottom line is this if the investigation finds that your organization’s data was impacted, our intent is to create a turnkey package that gives you plenty of time to review, to understand and digest so that you understand as we take the lead in communicating out to members.
Another area I wanted to talk about was security and resilience. As we look ahead, I really want to address what we’re doing to strengthen our environment. You know, we’re not simply restoring our systems. We’re using this moment to strengthen our security architecture, to modernize critical technology platforms, and to build greater operational resiliency across our enterprise. Our first priority was establishing a trusted recovery environment, and we worked with Mandiant and other partners to do that.
We’ve ensured that no threat actors are present. We’ve validated system integrity and conducted extensive testing before bringing services back online. But, you know, generally speaking, cyber threats continue to evolve at just an unprecedented pace. And this has been accelerated by AI and automation. Today’s reality is that organizations must assume they’re going to face persistent cyber threats, and they have to build the capability to detect, contain, recover and adapt quickly not if an incident occurs, but when an incident occurs.
And that’s why we’re making sustained investments in cybersecurity in modern platforms, operational resiliency and advanced threat detection. This focus is going to allow TruStage to protect against and to withstand and recover from future disruptions. Now, the goal here is to go a lot deeper on that topic in the coming weeks and in a future update. But I want to transition now to financial strength.
This is an area that has come up quite a few times over the last several, several weeks. And I want to give some insights into just the strength of TruStage You know, let me let me really kind of say this one. Clearly, this event is going to go down in history as being a significant operational and reputational challenge for us.
But this is not a financial survival issue for us. We enter this event incredibly financially strong and we remain financially strong. So before the cyber attack, TruStage reported more than $50 billion in assets, more than $37 billion in cash and investments. And our primary life insurance company maintained over $4.2 billion of surplus capital. And that cushion was deliberately built over the last several years to ensure that we’re prepared to navigate unexpected events and to meet long term obligations.
You know, said a different way. TruStage is built for the long haul. We aren’t managing only for the next quarter or the next couple of years. We have long term commitments to tens of millions of consumers and deep relationships across the credit union system, our financial model, our capital, our investments. They’re all structured to support those commitments over decades.
In fact, many customer relationships and our insurance obligations, they extend years into the future. And the business currently in our books, it continues to generate premiums and investment income over long periods of time. Our resilience also comes from the diversity of our businesses, which helps the overall organization remain resilient when one area is under pressure. Multiple businesses and revenue streams reduce dependance on any one product, one channel or source of new business.
All of those things get factored into the external assessments that are done by independent rating agencies, and our primary insurance companies continue to hold a ratings for Moody’s, Am Best’s, and S&P. We regularly stress tests our financials and liquidity position and can access more resources if there is a need. The bottom line is that we have the capacity to absorb a shock and keep investing in the future as we move through it, which is why we keep that cushion of surplus capital that I referenced earlier.
That strength, it really matters because it gives us the resources to invest in the middle market we serve to live our purpose and to do the right thing for our customers, some of whom experience significant financial hardship as a result of this disruption. In fact, that’s why we created and established this customer assistance fund, and we committed an initial $3 million from the TruStage Foundation to provide grants through an independent, nonprofit partner.
So far, all of the requests that have been submitted have been approved. And if funds run out or if those funds are depleted, we’ll reassess and move additional dollars from our foundation to this third party to ensure that we continue to take care of customers. Our financial strength allows us to invest in restoring the services that we are talking about here now.
They also allow us to continue to build a more secure, modern and resilient technology environment, and they allow us to deliver on the commitments that we’ve made to you and to your members. Our future and the future of credit unions remains deeply connected. You know, annually we invest tens of millions of dollars into the credit union system. And we do this because we believe in the system.
We do this because we believe in the differences that we make to middle market consumers and to the communities that we serve. So let me now turn things over to Chris, who’s going to talk about the progress that you can expect in the coming weeks as it relates to the recovery and where things now stand. So, Chris, floor is yours.
Thank you Terrance. I appreciate it. I want to start with the point that matters most. Progress only matters when you and your members or customers can experience it. We can talk about applications coming back online and infrastructure being rebuilt. But if your employees are still relying on manual workarounds, waiting for information, or explaining a delay for a member, then we are not where we need to be.
We know the past few months have been painful for your customers and your employees. That’s why I want to show you where we are in our recovery, where we’re headed next and when. You will see more of that progress in your day to day experience. You’ve asked us for this kind of visibility and you’ve waited for it. We know you need a clearer sense of when our capabilities are coming back, so you can plan for your business, your employees, and your members.
We now have strong confidence about our timelines, which I’ll share now. Okay, so on this page, there’s a lot going on in this page. I want to start at the top where you can see the journey that we’ve been on. Our first priority, as Terrance mentioned, was establishing a clean environment before reconnecting our systems. That work is complete.
We’ve also largely restored the infrastructure that runs our business. Our focus now is on reintegrating that technology and in enabling its use. This is the step where you will start to feel the difference. Now I want to explain the colors on this page because that’s important distinction here. Yellow represents the interim processes we’ve been using during recovery. In most cases, those processes require some manual work and take longer than usual as those lines move into the light green.
We are re-enabling our pre outage systems with automation turning back on. This will start to bring back the experience you’re used to. There will still be a few exceptions during this time, but our core capabilities will see meaningful improvement. Think of this state as about 80% restored. That’s important progress, but it doesn’t mean we’re finished. We’ll still be working down backlogs, improving system levels, and utilizing some workarounds.
Now finally, the dark green represents full restoration. When we’re back to the service and performance you expect from TruStage. The biggest thing I want you to take away from this roadmap is what’s happening over the next 45 days. We’re expecting meaningful improvement across several businesses, including areas where we know that disruption has created significant challenges for you, your employees, and the people you serve.
And some of that progress is already moving from the roadmap into practice. Recently, we communicated the return of transaction capabilities and benefits for you, and we’re sharing progress in lending. As more capabilities begin returning through phased rollouts in retirement, that will give plan sponsors and participants more of the ability to manage their accounts online again. Additionally, we’re on a path to complete payroll processing this month.
In lending, more automated claims servicing and enrollment capabilities will begin reducing some of the manual work that your teams have had to carry. You can also expect premium cleanup by the end by mid December to ease your end reporting. We’re also making progress in business protection, including servicing, servicing, policy issuance and in life where claims capabilities will continue to improve as we move through December.
We are working towards less manual work for your employees, fewer delays for your members, and a more predictable experience from us. But I don’t want you to look at this roadmap in here saying, we’re almost done. We’re not. We’ll continue working through backlogs, reconciliation and remaining continuity processes into the first quarter, which we are approaching in a phased, controlled way.
I want to acknowledge what that means in some cases as automated processes come back online. We may ask you to resubmit requests so we can move them through the system more efficiently. Or your team may need to reset passwords as part of our added security. Recovery also won’t look exactly the same for every credit union or partner. The dates on this roadmap are our current planning timeframes, but not every capability will become available to every credit union on exactly the same day.
We’re approaching that work in phases so we can validate performance and scale safely. And as we reach these milestones, our sales and support teams can provide more specific information about what they mean for your organization. Finally, I want to acknowledge something this roadmap can’t show. This disruption has created real challenges for you, your employees, and the people you served.
You’ve carried more manual work, dealt with delays, and at times haven’t had the certainty from us that you needed. We know that. And we don’t take your patience or your partnership for granted. Our responsibility now is to turn that progress on this roadmap into a better experience for you and the people you serve. We’re not finished, but we’re entering an important phase where the burden should begin to ease.
More capabilities will return, and the progress we’re making will increasingly improve the experience. We’ll continue to be transparent in our weekly updates about where we’re at, what’s changing, and what work remains. Thank you for continuing to partner with us. Back to you, Terrance.
Great. Thanks, Chris. Really appreciate the update and hopefully that gives some insights to everyone around. Just the current thinking and the timeline and what to expect next and where things now stand from a recovery standpoint. So we really did go quite a bit deeper on a number of topics that I know been on the minds of many of you in this video.
Our goal here is to continue to be as open and as direct as possible about the progress, about the challenges that continue to exist and about what’s next on this road to recovery. You know, I say this regularly that I never take trust for granted. We recognize that trust is earned through what we do rather than just what we say.
And Chris said this, but we recognize you’ve carried a significant amount of burden throughout this disruption. Our job now is to keep improving the experience, to restore the service you expect from us, and to keep you informed along the way as we move through this, this path and this journey. So thank you for your continued feedback. Thank you for your partnership, and thank you for everything that you continue to do to help serve members to make brighter financial futures possible for everyone.
We greatly value your partnership. So thanks for everything that you’re doing. Talk to you soon.