"Disaster has no schedule," warns Bob Boyd, chief executive officer of Agility Recovery Solutions. "Nothing tests an insurance agent's ability to meet a client's needs like an unforeseen disaster occurring without warning and creating unpredictable damage."
A recent study commissioned by Agility Recovery indicates that 90 percent of small- to midsize businesses are unprepared for business interruption or disasters.
With that in mind, Agility Recovery (www.agilityrecovery.com)–a former division of GE with 21 years experience in providing recovery solutions, consulting services and testing options for small- and midsize businesses–offers a number of resources to keep a business operating.
For a fee of $295 a month, Mr. Boyd said insurance agencies will have access to the following resources:
o Power: Generators stationed across North America.
o Technology: Personal computers, servers, tape drives, printers and fax machines.
o Office Space: In the form of mobile, retail and commercial space, along with necessary furniture.
o Connectivity: Satellite for voice and Internet service.
For all the talk about the hardware needed to run an agency, often agencies can neglect to consider the human element–the agent or customer service representative capable of handling a claim or answering a question from a client.
"Our industry sells itself on availability–in particular during catastrophes," said Richard Roy, president and managing general partner for Artizan Internet Services. "Having the primary focus on generators and trailers and not on people and service is completely backward to what we represent to the insured."
Thus, among Artizan's technology offerings to the insurance industry is CSR24–a service that provides back-up customer service representatives 24 hours a day, seven days a week for an agency. This is particularly important in the first couple of days following a disaster, noted Mr. Roy, as calls from clients reporting claims and seeking service spike.
Mr. Roy pointed out that many agents today write business out of state. If an agency is down from a disaster, CSR24 can service those accounts out-of-state accounts.
In the case of Hurricane Katrina, a Louisiana agency was still able to service out-of-state client needs because the service had copies of their in-force policies, policy data and a call center available to it.
If an agency cannot access its agency management system, CSR24 provides the agency's customers and CSRs access to account information online. While not a replacement for the agency management system, it does allow for policyholders to look up information and service representatives the ability to process client requests.
"CSR24 is not a generator or a trailer, [but it] serves that client base seamlessly while the agency gets [its] feet back on the ground," said Mr. Roy.
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