Help For Small Businesses With 9-11 Insurance Woes

Ms. Chanes, who with other attorneys has been advising small-business owners in Lower Manhattan with post-Sept. 11 insurance questions, said the new organization is an offshoot of those efforts.

Business owners, she said, will have basic insurance issues explained to them, such as "how to read a policy, what is a public adjuster, and business interruption coverage."

The purpose of the seminar, she said, is to "just help these people who don't spend a lot of time thinking about insurance and then suddenly have these horrific losses they're trying to deal with."

She said that she and Kevin Curnin, an attorney with Stroock, Stroock & Lavan in New York, realized that small-business owners needed to work together.

"Nobody was really paying much attention to the small-business owners, and maybe they needed to do some organizing," she said. "I thought 'that's a good idea, I hope somebody does that.'"

She said eventually she and Mr. Curnin realized that they had to take on the project themselves. "So we started working with our clients and they told their friends, and they told their friends, and what we have is a group of about 150 small-business owners."

The group of merchants wants "some input into what's going on," Ms. Chanes said. As well as access to grants and programs, she said the group wants a voice in how Lower Manhattan is rebuilt?health issues, insurance issues, business development and marketing, and "all the obvious things that the small-business people should have input in."

Topics to be covered at the program include insurance basics, types of coverages that may apply to Sept. 11 business losses, business interruption and business income coverage, and how to calculate and document losses.

In addition to a panel of insurance experts, Ms. Chanes said the New York State Department of Insurance has agreed to send a representative.