IN THE wake of HIPAA and Graham-Leach-Bliley, agencies are increasingly sensitive about their responsibility to protect their clients' privacy. Recent news stories have shown the damage that can be done to a company's reputation when it announces that its confidential information about individual consumers has been stolen or "hacked." If you haven't given this issue much attention, it may be time to take a look at practical solutions for protecting information.

An item in a Syracuse, N.Y., newspaper recently showed the potential danger of improperly handling confidential information. Participating in the city's recycling program, an insurance agency routinely put its discarded paper on the curb for a weekly recycling pick-up. A reporter rummaged through the agency's recycling container, as anyone could have, and confronted the agency after finding several confidential documents in the stack. Could this happen at your agency?

With this concern in mind, we considered buying a paper shredder when shredders first became available. We delayed our purchase for several reasons, including the fact that shredded paper requires more space for disposal. We participated in our community's recycling program, which required us to bring paper to a bin at a central recycling center. We derived some comfort from the security of the bin at the recycling center, as well as from the knowledge that the bin was transported directly to a regional landfill in a rather remote, rural location, where its contents were processed.

When the price of shredders began to fall, we decided to get one. The unit we bought was about the size of a large wastebasket, and it was advertised as being capable of shredding 15 sheets at once, with continuous feeding. Our experience indicated that the product's advertised claims were not too accurate. The unit often jammed. Though a "reverse" switch was supposed to help clear jams, getting jammed paper out often involved playing tug-of-war with the machine. The unit's motor failed after just three months, leaving us with a lifetime supply of vinyl bags and one more item to take to the dump.

We were disappointed by more than the shredder's performance. In the three months we used the device, we also were dismayed at the amount of time we had to spend feeding documents into the shredder. The makers of light- to medium-duty shredders certainly weren't considering insurance agencies in their design plans. Although we went paperless three-and-a-half years ago, we still process a lot of inbound paper-such as items that we scan and then discard.

Sometime after we "recycled" the shredder, we received a well-timed inquiry from a mobile commercial shredding service new to our area. Shred-It is a national company and just one of several to provide such a service. We declined their initial offer of service at $75 a month. About six months later, when they had signed more customers and built more efficient service routes, they dropped their offer to $30 a month, and we accepted it.

Similar to other shredding companies, this service brings a padlocked 50-gallon container to our location and schedules pick-ups when we want them. It's easy to stuff papers into the container, and we keep a key to the padlock in case we need to retrieve something we've put in the bin. The "shredding truck" that comes to our office has an onboard video camera that documents the date and time our documents are shredded. A simple Web search for "paper shredders" will lead you to the services that operate in your area.

Every agency has its own comfort level regarding the security of confidential information, as well as an acceptable price range for protecting that information. We certainly feel that peace of mind and our clients' privacy are worth $30 a month. Agencies can keep the cost of a shredding service down by separating true junk mail, such as catalogs, from the client-specific documents that need to be shredded, and by "turning off" as much paper from carriers as they will allow.