Jack was Right!

Preface: This article was originally written for Insurance Agents. It attempts to show the need for a Catastrophe / Contingency Planning and Disaster Management program as well as ideas / questions to help you develop a crisis communications plan. Development of such programs is complex and requires significant thought, planning, and actions. I encourage you to use this article as an "organizational gad fly" to get such a plan created for your business / family.

You don't want to do your catastrophe planning while standing waste deep in water or in the pile of debris that was your office.

Good luck - be safe!


A month or so after Hurricanes Rita and Katrina had changed our world on the Gulf Coast (yours changed too – you just might not realize it for awhile) forever, I called a good friend, Jack Burke with my idea du jour.

I was going to package the collective Rita / Katrina experiences learned in the wake of these storms and build programs, processes, etc. so that Catastrophe / Contingency Planning and Disaster Management could be added to the tool bag of independent agents for their own shops and businesses and individuals they insure.

Jack was gentle but direct and now in retrospect - very correct. He said, “Mike that’s a great idea. Unfortunately I don’t think it will work. You see people need denial in order to survive the potential worse case scenarios that might occur. We can’t handle the possibilities.”

He went on to explain that the best innovation he had ever seen never sold because it was based upon a premise of self-defense from personal attacks and he had discovered that the vast majority of people were unwilling or unable to deal with that possibility.

I was dejected with Jack’s comments but continued to fantasize about the possibilities of this great idea. Two events since my conversation with Jack have now convinced me that Jack was right and it is good business to return to my more traditional pre-storm fantasies. (Unfortunately laws of decency and commons sense prohibit me from sharing these with you.)

In October of 2005, I attended a Board of Trustees meeting in the Great Northwest. With my newly acquired post-storm wisdom (scar tissue) I proposed developing a contingency / catastrophic and disaster management plan for this organization. People were respectful of my experience but smiled and said “Mike, we already have a plan for fires, and earthquakes, and we don’t have the risk of flood here.”

With my newfound passion, I continued explaining that I was not talking about traditional risks that everyone faces; I meant the catastrophe that might destroy not just our facility but the community and the marketplace. Again my fellow Board members nodded politely, smiled, and went onto the next agenda item.


I persisted, “What about a dirty bomb?” What if we have to abandon this community forever? What if…? The Chair smiled and said “next agenda item is…” Six months later I surfaced the same topic and got a similar response.

Jack Burke was right – denial is part of our psyche!

Then three months ago, Jody at the PIA of Louisiana asked me to develop a CE program for the summer conference. We agreed that “crisis communications” (a.k.a. – what to do in an emergency and how to manage a disaster) was important. Then a “flashback” – two years earlier we had presented a great program on “crisis communications” to this same group at this same conference.

When the program was originally (2003) announced, most members rolled their eyes – if they attended they slept politely and in their critiques they expressed their honest feelings. “Why would an independent agency ever need a crisis communications plan?” (I tried to explain – because s_____ happens.)

I’ve often wondered if when their home, office, communities, and marketplaces were destroyed and communications were impossible, if they had any second thoughts about the program they slept through. When I introduce the program later this month I’ll remind them of the passed opportunity to prepare for the worse while they hoped for the best. The bottom line – Jack was right.

Since I know Jack is right but I am the perpetual optimist (dreamer / fool), I’ll share with you some of the thoughts that I will again attempt to force feed our audience at the Conference. I’ll raise for you some questions rather than provide answers.

If you’ve read this far, I encourage you to finish the article. Let me pre-empt your first question – WHY WOULD A SMALL (OR MEDIUM OR LARGE) INDEPENDENT AGENT EVER NEED A CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS PLAN?

Here are a few reasons – tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, dirty bombs, an employee is arrested for stealing your agency funds (your insureds will be concerned about their premium payments), your partner is arrested for child molestation, drug distribution, etc.

I know these things will never happen to you (denial is necessary) but if you are ever standing in the rubble of your former office and your e-mail / fax / phones / cells / etc. don’t work you might wish you had read on.

If you ever walk to the road at 6:00 a.m. in your bathrobe to pick up your newspaper only to be greeted by Geraldo Rivera jamming a microphone / camera in your face and asking for your comments about the terrible things your partner has been doing all these years – remember “I told you so.”

1. What event might occur that could change your world?

2. What event might change the world of your customers, carries, community, etc.?

3. Who can talk for you and your organization?

4. Who are your audiences (stakeholders)?

5. What are their individual needs? (Don’t limit your thoughts to just the products you sell. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs might provide a good starting point.)

6. What should the message be? Do you or your “spokesperson” know this message? Can you effectively communicate it?

7. What must you deliver in addition to a message / information? (You’re only the intermediary – can / will your carriers perform as expected?)

8. How do you prepare for and implement this process (pre-disaster, during the disaster, and disaster recovery)?

9. What media do you use for communications? (Remember Post Katrina / Rita cell phones were good for paper weights, e-mail and faxes did not exist, and snail mail didn’t work because your customers and probably yourself were evacuated somewhere. Broadcast and cable only work with electricity and newspapers were delayed for days or weeks.)

10. Can you manage your agency through a disaster if your family is in harm’s way? Can your employees be expected to help if their families are in similar circumstances? What about your individual customers and their families, the businesses you insure, their employees, and their families? What about your carriers, suppliers, communities, etc?

I’m afraid Jack is right but how I hope he’s wrong. The above is merely to get you thinking about “what if.” Denial may give us comfort but it can also lead us down the “road to ruin.” Problems cannot be solved until they are identified / quantified.

You don’t want to be doing your contingency / catastrophic planning while waist deep in water or as an evacuee in your “super dome.” Good luck.

I told you so!

Copyright (July 2006) Michael G. Manes
All rights reserved