NEAFC 31st Annual Conference.pdf - New England Association of ...

NEW ENGLAND A,SSOCI~TION OF FIRE ~CHIEFS
the rampage and we in the insurance adjustment field have been called cn to help.
What we do is of interest to you because insurance men and firemen have x very
close community df interest.
What is the catastrophe plan I speak about? No. 1, when disaster strikes in a concentrated,
savage form, destroying property, hundreds and: hundreds of houses, reducing
people to a homeless state, there isn’t enough insurance help in the vicinity to~ do the
job the insuran.ce people want to do, funds to reha.bilitate an area, so that something
had to be done to prevent an influx of individuals into an area, each concerned with
enriching themselves, perhaps at the expense of the public, of men who would not take
the proper care, give the proper service which we in our businss expect to give in time
of stress and do give it in the normal course of events so that the National Board of
Underwriters has organized: a catastrophe plan for speeding up the processing cf insurance
claims after disasters.
It invol-~,ed the setting up of a field once which would process the claims adjusted
by the men who came in for that work. It meant that men from that National Board
would check the work of the adjustors to ensure the public was getting the full adjustment
service to. which it was entitled. Further than that, these officers acted as a
clearing house for information, as a means of communication to the people and as a
means of speeding up loss papers to the company for payment.
That is fine as far as the supervisory office is concerned. In our own organization,
the General Adjustment Bureau has esta,blished: a catastrophe plan and we have had
occasion to bring men in from California, Maine an.d the State of Texas. We have had
operations in hurricanes in various parts of the Country where men have been brought
in spedtically for the job of speeding the payment of insurance funds so these people
can rehabilitate an~d get back on a normal living basis.
A catastrophe plan must have some background. I would like to tell ye.u what
the insurance .business generally does and why it is doing what it is doing. It is the
insurance man’s dream to be able to pay a claim almost before the building falls to the
ground. We would: like to be able to pass our loss payments to. the people immediately.
It works where there are a few claims but in an occasion such as happened the
o~her day, you have an entirely different situation. You have thousands of peopla
affected. You have a state of.mental shock which exists for days after the occurrence.
You have an influx of men who are there to get what they can as quickly as they can
get it, builders, material men, contractors who have no interest in the community other
than to get a fast dollar and get away.
We don’t think that is right in our business. Our men are trained to render aa
equitable adjustment of claims to provide an indemnity within the provisions of the
policy to start the policyholder. When prices are inflated, the cost of rebuilding goes
up and it is very possible that a quick adjustment won’t give the policyholder what he
needs in the way of indemnity.
We have certain processes by which we strive to stabilize the upset conditions and
so our business is to follow the work which you have done.
We are bringing in new men to the community--men who come from other parts
of the Country. There are in Worcester today adjusters who two weeks ago were in
Texas and three weeks before that in Mississippi. The man who heads our office is
from Buffalc. He was called to Columbus, Georgia and stayed two weeks down there.
He was about cleaned up and came home and then he had to move over to Waco. He
just barely got back when the Worcester job came up. He is a man whose experience
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