RIMS Offers Advice On 9/11 Losses

By Michael Ha

NU Online News Service, Feb. 21, 3:01 p.m. EST?A risk manager who weathered the 9/11 terrorist attack advised her colleagues that after such a major catastrophe they should be prepared for a barrage of phone calls from twitchy executives looking for a claim reimbursement check.

That counsel came from Sheila Small who spoke on a panel presented by the New York chapter of Risk and Insurance Management Society Inc. this week. The group discussed what lessons came from the 9/11 disaster.

Ms. Small, who is assistant treasurer for risk management & insurance at New York-based Verizon Communications Inc., counseled her audience to be ready to manage expectations of senior executives.

"Managing expectation is the key. [after 9/11] They were constantly calling me, asking ?When are we getting the money?' They were expecting the checks in the mail yesterday," she recalled.

Ms. Small said what she told the management from day one was that "we had losses before, and we had quick recoveries, and we have teams in place to get this done. But it won't get done overnight."

The panel moderator, Diane Askwyth, director of risk management at Basking Ridge, N.J.-based Avaya Inc., noted that, "As risk managers, we spend countless hours negotiating coverage, limits, sublimits, terms and conditions of insurance policies to protect our companies, but until the claim actually happens, we cannot be absolutely certain how well those policies are going to respond."

At Verizon, Ms. Small said that one way to help minimize the issue of disagreements among different carriers as well as different layers of the coverage is to emphasize communication and assist everyone involved in the process to work together as a team.

"It was a full-court-press team effort. The insurance carriers, brokers, adjusters and the operations people were all working together as a team and worked through the process," said Ms. Small, whose company suffered losses in excess of $1 billion from the 9/11 event.

Verizon's property limits were $1 billion, and the company has recovered about half of the limits so far.

"We had a full-limit loss, and our loss has not been all adjusted yet. And there were disagreements, but we were able to work through many of these issues. Our company has recovered a substantial advance on our loss," she said.

Ms. Small added that Verizon was similar to the airline industry in that the company incurred losses in every location of the terror attack.

"There were three major locations involved in the attack: the Pentagon--where we had large facilities and people working--the World Trade Center, and even in the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, where we had earphones and equipment. In every case, Verizon was there," she said.

The multilocation nature of Verizon's losses prompted her company to consider the issue raised by WTC leaseholder Larry Silverstein that the attack on Twin Towers represents two distinct events, with two separate claims, which in Mr. Silverstein's case would be $3.5 billion each.

"So in our case, we asked, ?Do we pursue the idea of two occurrences, or even three or four losses?' But we moved ahead adjusting our losses as one occurrence, however, we maintain our reservation rights," she said.

Verizon also made sure to demonstrate to insurers that the company learned from this catastrophic event and that it acted to minimize its risk in the future, she said.

"We are a company of a lot of engineers. Basically, the major changes we looked at are the central offices and the distribution of circuits in our central offices," said Ms. Small.

She noted that Verizon had suffered losses from a major switching facility next to the World Trade Center complex. "We are trying to make sure that there is no heavy concentration in circuits in one location."

Another problem the company faced in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attack was the lack of terrorism coverage. "When we renewed our coverage Dec. 31, 2001, the markets were somewhat in a turmoil and terrorism coverage was excluded," Ms. Small noted.

"If another 9/11 occurred in 2002, there would have been no coverage from the insurance market for us, even though the government might have stepped in while negotiating the terrorism risk insurance act," she said.

On the last renewal on Dec. 31, 2002, after the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act was signed into law, Verizon was able to reinstate a good portion of terrorism coverage, she added.

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RIMS Offers Advice On 9/11 Losses

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