The VRC Newsletter (November 12)

Year-End Ready: Vendor Renewals You Can Enforce

Author

Junie Talisay
November 12, 2025

In partnership with

Vendor Renewals You Can Defend

Budgets are closing, renewals are stacking, and customer security reviews aren’t slowing down for the holidays. This week is about approving vendors quickly and credibly with locking in the few controls and promises that matter most, capturing proof once, and reusing it all quarter. Use the checklist below, paste the scorecard into your workflow, and ship decisions you can defend in audits and client questionnaires.

Third-party risk is driving real losses. 

  • The FBI’s latest IC3 report logged $16B in cybercrime losses for 2024 with BEC among the top drivers, underscoring the stakes for email- and vendor-driven fraud. *

  • A 2024 study found 35.5% of breaches involved third-party access up 6.5% year over year. *

  • Healthcare shows the blast radius: HHS says the Change Healthcare breach ultimately impacted ~192.7M individuals, an emblematic vendor incident that also lacked MFA at a critical point of access. *

  • And breach costs remain punishing with U.S. healthcare breaches average ~$10.22M in 2025. *

Security Basics, Verified Fast

Ask for evidence, not essays. Keep each receipt dated and owned.

  • MFA on admin/tenant portals (screenshot or policy link).

  • Encryption at rest and in transit with log retention you can request (90–365 days).

  • SOC 2 (current) and/or ISO 27001 certificate, or a concise controls summary.

  • Incident contacts and Service Level Agreements (SLA): named owners, 24/7 path, expected response windows.

  • Sub-processors: list, regions, and change-notice method.

Data Use Promises, No Surprises

Say it plainly and get it in writing.

  • Model training on customer data: default no; opt-in only with written consent.

  • Data location & retention by type and region.

  • Return/Delete commitments on termination, with timeline and confirmation format.

Healthcare Add-On: BAAs That Match Reality

If PHI is in scope, align the BAA with the actual service.

  • PHI in/out of scope, encryption requirements, breach notice clock, deletion/return specifics.

  • Same sub-processor obligations and SLAs mirrored in the BAA.

Decide and Document in One Pass

Capture answers, conditions, and follow-ups in one place so approvals are quick and defensible.

Vendor Renewal Scorecard (copy/paste)

  • Vendor / Product / Owner: _________________________

  • MFA on admin portals: ✅ / ❌ (evidence link)

  • Encryption (at rest / in transit): ✅ / ❌ (evidence link)

  • Logs retained (days): ______ (access on request: ✅ / ❌)

  • SOC 2 / ISO 27001 provided: ✅ / ❌ (date)

  • Incident contacts & response window: __________ / __________

  • Sub-processor list & change notice: (link / method)

  • AI/data training on customer data: No unless consent (rider applied: ✅)

  • Data location & retention: _______________________

  • Return/Delete at exit (timeline): ________________

  • BAA (if PHI): ✅ / ❌ (scope notes)

  • Conditions to approve: ___________________________

  • Follow-ups & owners (due dates): ________________

Paste-Ready Contract Riders

Drop these into your order form, Statement of Work (SOW), or master agreement as-needed.

AI / Data Use Rider

“Provider shall not use Customer Data to train or fine-tune machine-learning models without Customer’s prior written consent. If consent is granted, Provider will disclose model purpose, data handling, and retention. Customer may withdraw consent at any time; Provider will cease such processing within 10 business days.”

Sub-Processor Change Notice

“Provider will maintain a current list of sub-processors and notify Customer at least 30 days before any material change. Customer may object on reasonable security or compliance grounds and, if unresolved, terminate the affected services without penalty.”

File Once, Reuse All Quarter

Keep filenames boring and searchable; put owner and date on every document.

  • 2025-11 VendorX MFA-Screenshot.pdf

  • 2025-11 VendorY SOC2-Report-Bridge-Letter.pdf

  • 2025-11 VendorZ Subprocessor-List-Notice.pdf

  • 2025-11 VendorA BAA-Signed.pdf

VRC: Your Year-End Vendor Partner

VRC turns vendor answers into decisions you can defend fast. We help you:

  • Run a renewal review for MFA, encryption/logs, SOC 2/ISO evidence, AI/data clauses, and BAAs.

  • Redline the AI/Data rider and Sub-processor notice to fit your contracts.

Deliver a scorecard hand-off with conditions, owners, and due dates for any follow-ups.

Finish Renewals With Confidence

When your vendor renewals include clear controls, explicit data-use terms, and paste-ready riders, audits move faster and customers see you’re serious about risk. Close out Q4 with approvals you can stand behind and a vendor file you can reuse on day one of January.

VanRein Compliance helps you streamline renewals and enter Q1 with a clean, defensible vendor package. Schedule a discovery call this week and we’ll tailor this scorecard and rider set to your portfolio.

Meet Kristin Bornfleth!

VRC’s Operations Director

Service Focused: As a dedicated Operations Director, Kristin prides herself on ensuring that our customers projects are delivered with the highest level of care and that they feel a true part of the VanRein Compliance Family. Our customers often commend Kristin's gift giving.

Education & Expertise: With a degree in Business and Marketing from University of North Texas, Kristin brings a wealth of knowledge and skill set, including attention to detail and document inspection.

Fun Fact:‍ Kristin loves to travel and attend musicals.

#ExperienceTheVRCDifference

Realtime User Onboarding, Zero Engineering

Quarterzip delivers realtime, AI-led onboarding for every user with zero engineering effort.

✨ Dynamic Voice guides users in the moment
✨ Picture-in-Picture stay visible across your site and others
✨ Guardrails keep things accurate with smooth handoffs if needed

No code. No engineering. Just onboarding that adapts as you grow.

Exit-Ready Before You Renew:
Contracts That Protect You

Renewals are when you have the most leverage and the least time. If you only validate “business as usual,” you risk painful offboarding later: stalled exports, surprise retention, dangling admin access, and finger-pointing over who deletes what (and when). Use this week to make every renewal exit-ready: data you can reclaim, access you can revoke, and obligations you can enforce without a fire drill.

Data Custody You Can Prove

Lock down who owns the data, how you’ll get it back, and how deletion is confirmed in writing.

  • Export on request: full, machine-readable export.

  • Time-bound deletion: vendor deletes within X days of termination (or earlier if requested).

  • Certificate of destruction: signed, dated, and references data types/systems.

  • Retention by type: logs, backups, archives—spell out durations and exceptions.

  • IP clarity: your content, configurations, and outputs remain yours.

Security at Exit

Offboarding is when controls are tested for real. Bake in specifics.

  • Log access window: 90–180 days post-termination for audit/regulatory pulls.

  • Breach tail: post-termination notification obligations for incidents discovered later.

  • Sub-processor flow-down: deletion/return is mirrored to all sub-processors.

  • Vulnerability closure: critical fixes affecting your tenant handled prior to exit.

Access, Identity, and Tenant Ownership

No orphaned admins. No shared break-glass accounts. No DNS limbo.

  • SSO everywhere: renewal conditioned on SSO/MFA for your tenant.

  • Admin of record: named roles; vendor support cannot bypass your SSO.

  • Credential turnover: all vendor-held creds to your tenant are rotated at exit.

  • DNS/number ownership (where relevant): domains, short links, SMS numbers, and call flows transfer cleanly with documented steps.

Continuity and Knowledge Transfer

Don’t pay twice for tribal knowledge. Require a documented handoff.

  • Runbooks & configs: exported playbooks, API mappings, and policy settings.

  • Transition assistance: N hours of exit support (meetings + ticket time) at published rates.

  • Performance history: export SLAs, uptime, support tickets, and changes for your records.

One of the best ways to test and confirm your security efforts and levels is a VanRein Compliance Tabletop Exercise. The VRC TTX gives you a real-time, step-by-step look at your security strengths and identify vulnerabilities that could put your data protection efforts at serious risk.

Money and Risk Tails

Reduce “gotchas” at the finish line.

  • Final invoice holdback: a small retainage (e.g., 10%) released upon certificate of destruction + exit checklist completion.

  • Pro-rated refunds: for prepaid unused terms if you terminate for cause or security noncompliance.

  • Audit cooperation: reasonable assistance for regulatory inquiries tied to your term.

Copy-and-Paste Clauses (Drop-In Riders)

Use these as starting points with your counsel; tailor to your environment.

Data Return & Deletion

“Upon expiration or termination, Provider shall (a) make available to Customer a complete export of Customer Data in machine-readable format(s) listed in the Order, and (b) within 30 days thereafter, delete all Customer Data (including backups) from Provider and sub-processors, except to the extent retention is legally required. Provider shall deliver a Certificate of Destruction identifying systems and data types deleted, signed by an authorized officer.”

Post-Termination Log Access

“For 120 days following termination, Provider shall preserve and, upon request, provide Customer with access to logs and audit records reasonably necessary to satisfy audit, incident, or regulatory obligations. Standard hourly rates apply for retrieval beyond self-service.”

Security & Breach Tail

“Provider shall notify Customer of any Security Incident involving Customer Data discovered within 12 months following termination, consistent with the breach notification obligations applicable during the Term.”

Transition Assistance

“Provider will provide up to 20 hours of transition services (runbooks, configuration export, coordination) at the rates specified in the Order. Additional hours require Customer approval.”

Final Payment Retainage

“Customer may withhold 10% of the final invoice until delivery of (i) the data export, (ii) the Certificate of Destruction, and (iii) completion of the Exit Checklist signed by both parties.”

Renewals that Don’t Boomerang

Exit-ready contracts shrink your risk surface, speed audits, and eliminate the “we’ll sort it out later” debt that explodes when relationships change. Build the finish into the renewal and you’ll spend Q1 executing plans—not untangling access, exports, and obligations after the fact.

Partner with VanRein Compliance to harden renewals with exit-ready clauses, enforceable security terms, and a scorecard you can reuse across your vendor portfolio. Respond to this email and we’ll help you tailor the checklist and riders to your contracts so you renew fast today and offboard clean tomorrow.

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