Company Recounts Katrina Horrors
As the hard-hit South starts to pick up the pieces left by Hurricane Katrina, insurers in New Orleans are detailing the impact the storm has had on employees, policyholders and daily operations.
One of these insurers is Pan-American Life Insurance Co., which so far has contacted 150 of 450 home office employees, said Tom Richert, Pan-American Life's director of marketing. There are no employee fatalities or injuries that the company is aware of, he continued. There have been a "couple of scares" concerning relatives of management, but overall, everything is all right, Mr. Richert said.
At this point, there have not been claims filed, but "it certainly would be understandable if that occurred," he said. However, he noted that Pan-American's business is spread across 42 states and 7 countries in Latin America.
The company's 28-story headquarters had windows blown out of the top floors and some possible flooding, he said. The building is located on Poydras Street, about a mile from the flooded Superdome, Mr. Richert added.
The building's generators went down almost immediately and there was flooding of about two feet of water near the headquarters, he noted. There were also reports of looting near the company's headquarters.
Several of Pan-American's property managers stayed in the neighboring Intercontinental Hotel, in which it has a part-ownership, until the Tuesday after the storm, he continued. At that point, however, senior management ordered them to leave because "looting was getting out of hand."
Mr. Richert, who lives in the hard-hit Jefferson Parish area, said residents were given a window of opportunity, through Aug. 31, to go to their homes and retrieve personal items. It could be more than a month before another such opportunity becomes available, he added.
The company is hoping it will be able to bring in trucks to get important legal, marketing, underwriting and human resources records, he continued.
He emphasized that Pan-American is up and running. Space has been leased in Baton Rouge, 70 miles west of New Orleans; a temporary Web site is operational; and Pan-American is paying claims, writing new business and "returning to as much normalcy as we can." The company is offering a 60-day grace period to contract holders in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
Pan-American did have a recovery plan in place, which was put into operation, Mr. Richert explained.
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