NU Flashback
In todays edition, National Underwriter reports on the insurance implications of the third major blackout to hit the United States in more than a century of publishing.
For those readers whose libraries dont go back as far as NUs archives, heres a glimpse of some of what we reported back in 1965 and 1977.
Nov. 12, 1965–Tucked on one of the back pages of our 30-cent "Fire and Casualty" weekly newspaper, a three-inch item bore the small headline, "Big Blackout." NU reported that the "biggest blackout in history" had hit the Northeast at 5:30 p.m. of Nov. 9, leaving 30 million people "from Buffalo to Boston and from Montreal to central Pennsylvania" without light and power–"many for 12 hours."
"Police, however, reported very little looting and there was less crime and fewer accidents than usual–in or out of cars," NU reported.
Dec. 3, 1965–Three weeks later in the Dec. 3 edition, news of the blackout made it to the front page in an article about Royal-Globe Insurance. NU reported that the companys insurance engineers had jumped into action after the blackout hit, making their way to insured plants in the affected area at the direction of the companys loss prevention manager.
"Even when no damage occurs," the start-up of complex machines suddenly halted by a power failure at a large manufacturing plant "is an exacting process which demands the availability of professional engineering know-how," the lengthy article reported.
A similar plan had been implemented months earlier when the 150-miles-per-hour winds of Hurricane Betsy hit Florida and the Gulf states in September.
July 22, 1977– Under a front page photo of looters carrying stolen groceries out of a New York City supermarket, NUs headline read "Blackout Loss $30 Million." Our story (juxtaposed next to an article about State Farms $51.5 million operating loss) said a $30 million blackout-related industry loss total was expected for insured losses from looting, vandalism, malicious mischief and arson. The American Insurance Associations early estimate included FAIR Plan and Federal Crime Insurance Program losses.
Aug 19, 1977–With a headline reading "Blackouts, Bomb Scares, Bombings And Insurance," Professor Alfred Jaffe provided an in-depth analysis of business interruption and food spoilage losses, which isnt very different from the one in todays edition. The lead-in to his Points & Viewpoints column also gives a sense of time and place that may feel familiar, even to readers who didnt live through those turbulent times.
Here is an abbreviated version:
"Within a three-week period, three tragic events in New York City made front-page news throughout the country (and beyond)….Of these, the Con Edison blackout…, the FALN bombings and widespread bomb scares and evacuations of major office buildings have important insurance implications. The third tragic event–with no widespread or unusual insurance tie-in–was the latest psychopathic killing by "Son of Sam."
While todays readers may only know about the Son of Sam from a movie–and may not know that a Puerto Rican terrorist organization known as the FALN (Armed Forces of National Liberation) sustained one of the longest domestic terrorism campaigns in U.S. history–a postscript ending Mr. Jaffes column hits very close to home. There, Mr. Jaffe reported that 800 state employees from the New York insurance department were evacuated from the World Trade Center because of a terror scare a week before his column appeared.
(Editors Note: Special thanks to NUs Tim Murphy for digging through our archives, and to Allison Bell of our life-health staff, who prepared NUs first report of the 2003 blackout on our Online News Service.)
Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, August 25, 2003. Copyright 2003 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.
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