Years ago, my teenage son had a minor accident in his pickup. After telling me his tale of woe, he beseeched: “Please, Dad, don't tell me I'm going to learn something from this. Can I just be miserable for a while instead of looking for the lesson here?”

I was a bit stunned, since I had no idea I'd taken that approach to so many of my children's difficult life events. Yet I evidently had done so often enough for my son to assume it would again be my initial reaction. “So be it,” I told him. “Suffer now, but later we'll discuss what you need to take away from this experience.”

Although I'm sure my son thought I'd only permitted him a reprieve from the inevitable, I truly believe any time God throws you off a cliff, He expects you to take notes. Perhaps it's a risk-management mindset, a propensity that led me to my current field. Perhaps it's just a hallucinogenic flashback to the '60s. But taking the opportunity to learn from a bad experience, to avoid a repeat performance or at least reduce the amount of pain and suffering, seems wise.

Which brings us to Hurricane Katrina. As I write these words, the tragedy is still unfolding and much of the disaster preparedness and response will no doubt provide fodder for review and training simulations in local, state and federal government organizations for decades to come. Clearly, not enough folks learned the lessons from Hurricanes Andrew or Ivan, or any other weather-related catastrophe of the last hundred years. For example, people have expressed surprise at the “unexpected” breakage of the levee in New Orleans and the resultant severe flooding. “How could we have known?” they cry. Perhaps those folks never stood on one of the levees around that great city and saw that the level of the water on the one side was significantly higher than the city land on the other.

But I leave the questioning of governmental actions, or lack thereof, to others. The person who must “learn something from this” is you. Now, while everyone else is discussing and debating the latest news from the Gulf Coast, is the perfect time to say not “There but for the grace of God go I” but rather “What if the next time it's us?” Are you prepared? Is your organization? Are your clients? Are the proper coverages and procedures in place?

“We can do that later,” some may say. “Now is the time to help those poor folks get to safety and begin rebuilding shattered lives. Later we can wax philosophical, but now is the time for labor and relief.” But, while offering any assistance possible to those in need is a given, I firmly believe that now is the perfect time to question our own preparedness.

Ironically, I was in Biloxi and Gulfport just over a week before Katrina struck. I ate supper at a restaurant in one of those casinos you likely saw on the news that had been picked up from the shoreline and thrown several hundred feet inland. I'm fairly sure the cab driver who took me to the Gulfport airport (the same one where President Bush landed a few days after the storm for his first damage tour) was the man interviewed by a CNN reporter among the ruins, saying he had lost his house and almost everything else he owned, but was grateful to be alive. Adding to the irony, several of the insurance folks I had supper with had told me of an excellent catastrophe-planning conference they had just attended at which Jeff Grady, President of the Florida Association of Insurance Agents, had given an informative and motivational talk on the lessons learned from Florida's spate of hurricanes last year. Those Gulf Coast agents were already planning to follow up with Jeff and implement some of his suggestions. Unfortunately, Katrina didn't wait.

That's why now is the time to act. Wise is the person who realizes the value of healthy living and proper diet after they've had a heart attack. Wiser still is the person who learns the lesson before having a heart attack.

Although there isn't room here for a detailed analysis, I'll suggest a few starting places.

Record portions of the news from the disaster area. Schedule a series of staff meetings and show attendees a few minutes of footage. At each meeting, focus on a different element of loss: flooding, wind damage, looting, loss of power, lack of water, extensive debris, clean-up, closed businesses, the need for repairs, a shortage of contractors, fraud, rebuilding complications and whatever else strikes you as a significant result of such a catastrophe.

For each focal point, ask how your clients would have fared with the coverage you currently write for them. Where are the shortfalls and gaps? What previously declined endorsements or additional coverages now appear critical? How do clients' policy limits and property valuations look, now that you've seen the losses from Katrina? What attitudes do you need to adjust before approaching clients and prospects with conviction that proper protection likely will mean purchasing a great deal more coverage and taking far more risk-management steps than were previously considered adequate?

Anyone who wants to discuss flood insurance with a client or prospect today has abundant video and photo footage to illustrate the need. If you've had difficulty proposing business income coverage in the past, replay or reread the news accounts. Experts estimate it will be months before rebuilding can even begin in damaged Gulf Coast areas, and obviously much longer before it's completed.

Pull specific accounts from your files to review for potential losses you or your clients may have overlooked or minimized before Katrina brought them into the harsh light of reality. For example, an e-mail I received from a Louisiana attorney documents the impact on thousands of local lawyers and police. Besides losing their offices, relocating for what may be months, being unable to communicate with most of their clients and associates, they also face hindered proceedings for both saving the innocent and punishing the guilty, due to loss of evidence, paperwork and court documents going back decades. Beyond basic property coverages, what impact will this have on attorneys' business income, extra expense and professional liability expo sures? How will it change or reinforce proper risk-management procedures for storage or duplication of valuable papers and other records? How will communication be re-established with courts and clients who may also be facing destruction of their homes and offices, and possibly relocation?

Unfolding before our eyes are exactly the types of losses our products and services are designed to address. If you have any heart at all for this business, you have to be both appalled by the human loss and suffering, and inspired by the knowledge that the products and services we provide will form the largest portion of the financial wellsprings from which the survivors will draw to restore their lives and livelihoods. Certainly government and charitable organizations will contribute significantly, but only the federal administration of flood coverage will keep our industry from supplying the vast majority of recovery funds. If you count flood insurance in our column (which I do since most insureds purchase it through local agents), the insurance share of the load dwarfs all others. As an old preacher friend of mine used to say, “If that don't light your fire, your wood's wet!”

Insureds and prospects also have been watching the story of Hurricane Katrina unfold. For many, the need for sufficient coverage–and the perils of ignoring that need for the sake of convenience or a lower price–will become crystal clear and uppermost in their minds over the next few months. If anyone disagrees with your recommendations and concerns (as some always will), don't offer any long, complex coverage scenarios or illus- trations. Simply take along a computer and DVD and “roll tape.” Any business client who looks at the destruction in New Orleans and does not understand the concept of business-interruption and extra expense coverage, or even flood and crime coverage, earns a place in your “suspect braindead–no further action necessary” file.

We've watched. We've wept. We've given. But if we don't learn, the outcome will be far worse.

We'll repeat.

Special Reports /

Policy Issues: Failing to learn from Katrina also would be a disaster

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