To experience firsthand how the insurance industry is respondingto the tornado that took out a large swath of Joplin, Mo. on May22, I “embedded” on June 7 with State Farm Insurance, meeting witha local agent, two catastrophe claims representatives and anauto-lines specialist.

Subscribers to NU's digital edition can click on theplay button on the opposite page to watch a video report from theday in Joplin. If you're reading this in print, don't worry—you cancheck our website, PropertyCasualty360.com/Video/, to see what wefilmed.

Buddy System Averts“Meltdown”

“I'm sure I would have had a meltdown by now if I had not hadthe help of those State Farm partners,” Karen Rutledge tells me,describing the impact of State Farm's “Buddy System,” where agentsin unaffected areas offer their help to their colleagues in thecenter of the storm. “I could not have provided the service Iwanted to provide if I hadn't had that help,” says Rutledge—who hasbeen an agent in Joplin for 25 years. “[These are] agents willingto walk away from their office and the way they make a living tocome and help somebody else.”

The agents, many with claims experiences, were there to greetthe “overwhelming” influx of policyholders. Not only were thesebuddies helping to write advance checks—they even set up agenerator in Rutledge's office so that when she arrived back fromChicago the morning after the tornado struck, “my team had power tooperate the computers, take calls and help all the people comingin.”

Bathtub Refuge

Asked about some of the stories that most stuck out amidst allthe turmoil and trauma, Rutledge says: “There's just been so manypeople that were actually in their homes—nothing left—and I askedthem where they were in the home, and over and over I have heard itwas the bathtub. Word has gotten out over the years that the safestroom in your house is possibly the bathroom. So many stories ofpeople riding out the storm in their bathtub and that being allthat was left, and not even in the same place in the house—maybe itwas in the yard. It's just amazing, seriously, that there were notmore [fatalities].”

Seconding what Rutledge says about the tub, Steve Simpson, acatastrophe field claim representative  for State Farm,talked to a young married couple renting a house who got in the tubat the last second, pulled a mattress over themselves, “and theyended up two houses down, still in the bathtub. And the husband'struck ended up where the bathtub used to be.”

Tech & The Tornado

Both Rutledge and the catastrophe claims reps I met with pointedout how much the technology they use has changed when responding tosuch events.

Claims reps now bring with them aerial photos of apolicyholder's property when they go to evaluate damage which theyuse to help make sure their measurements onsite are as accurate aspossible.

And a device as ubiquitous as digital cameras has made a bigdifference, says Jasmine Coleman, another catastrophe field claimrepresentative with whom I toured a totaled home. The digitalapproach gives them an opportunity to both see the photosimmediately and take vastly more than they could in the(not-too-recent) days when they carried Polaroids.

“On my ride back from Chicago,” says Rutledge, “I actually wasable from my BlackBerry to access the voicemails people had sent meand file the claims on my iPad through State Farm's application. Iwas doing that in the car while my mother was frantically trying toget me back to where I needed to be. That same technology isavailable for the customers. I had numerous customers file theirclaim online, either through a computer or an application on theirtelephone. [Not too long ago,] we would have been trying to handwrite this information and would have been only able to faxit.”

Lessons Learned

“Every person I've spoken with says their next house is going tohave a basement and a safe room,” Simpson tells me. Indeed, thefamily who lived in the destroyed home we visited survived in theirsafe room—and left a poignant “We Lived” message on one of theirremaining exterior walls, letting friends and neighbors know theyhad pulled through.

“I think now,” says Rutledge, “when we talk to people about thecoverages on their homeowners—and we talk about here's what weestimate with the tools we have on what it's going to cost torebuild—that we now have the experience to know the tools we workwith are legitimate. And you need to seriously consider this eventhough you think, 'Oh well, I could only sell it for this'—whichhas nothing to do with the cost of reconstruction. And I thinkpeople will realize that those [increased coverages] are worthconsidering.”

The other lesson both insureds and prospective policyholders arelikely to take away? “That catastrophe does happen. And now we knowbecause we've all experienced it, and it can be us, and it was us,”says Rutledge.

Personal Perspective

While I was mentally prepared for what I would experience inJoplin—and had probably seen hundreds of photos and nearly an hourof video clips—witnessing it in person was like a body blow to thesenses. I found myself constantly whispering “Unbelievable”—becauseit was, simply, hard to accept as real carnage on such a massscale.

The storm's path was so wide—and its winds of such force—thatthere were neighborhoods where block after block after block wasnothing but rubble. And I'll never forget the trees—many stilllooking, but utterly denuded of all leaves, standing like starkskeletons on the desolate landscape.

As it happens, I went to a photography exhibition the Fridaybefore I left for Joplin of images taken by the U.S. Army inHiroshima in the weeks after the atomic bombing. And what I saw inJoplin was eerily, horrifyingly similar. 

Decompressing, Post-Disaster

The last two weeks have been highly emotional, stressful timesfor Simpson, Rutledge and Coleman. How do they plan to decompresswhen they are finally able to focus again on their personallives?

“I have my State Farm trip to Disney scheduled for June 25 withall of my family and grandchildren, and I am definitely going,”says Rutledge. “We've had an EF-5 tornado, and I am going to DisneyWorld.”

“What I do typically [when I return after a months-longassignment] is I walk into my house and literally just relax,complete release,” says Coleman. “I will take a good long nap thatwill probably be a day and a half.