Posted on 09/08/2005 8:07:10 PM PDT by WestTexasWend
For several blocks, insurance adjuster Pete O'Connor dodged fallen power lines and climbed over downed trees in Gulfport, Miss., until he came across a car.
Inside, there were four people he had been looking for -- a family whose home had been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and now lived in their car.
"When I met them, it was an overwhelming experience to provide them help and let them know everything was going to be OK," said O'Connor, an adjuster for MetLife Auto & Home who lives in Concord, N.C.
He inspected the house, wrote them a check and moved on as the family started looking for temporary housing.
A veteran of many catastrophes, O'Connor said Hurricane Andrew, which hit south Florida in 1992, had been the worst disaster scene he had experienced in his careeer. Until Katrina.
"Just unbelievable," he said Wednesday on a telephone call from Gulfport.
The damage from Katrina is expected to make it the costliest disaster in the history of the insurance industry. Estimates run as high as $100 billion, which would be nearly five times higher than the cost of Hurricane Andrew, the previous leader at $21.5 billion, according to the Insurance Information Institute. (The institute says the Sept. 11 terrorist attack in 2001 ranks second at $20 billion.)
O'Connor is one of thousands of insurance adjusters now helping residents of the Gulf region put their lives back together, inspecting damage to homes, cars and businesses.
These adjusters are fanning out into neighborhoods across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida to find owners whose property has been destroyed by the hurricane.
In many cases, the adjusters are writing checks on the spot as advances against final claim settlements.
"We're getting money in their hands as quickly as we can, mostly right on site with them," said Mike Neubauer, director of MetLife's national catastrophe response team. The advances typically run $2,500 and up, he said.
MetLife Auto & Home, based in Warwick, is the property and casualty arm of MetLife Inc., with about 4 million policies in effect around the country. It has about 200 adjusters in the Gulf Coast region and is expecting to send a second wave to give a break to those already there. The 200 MetLife adjusters include company employees and others who work for outside companies retained by MetLife.
"These are people who are working long hours in a high-stress environment," explained William J. Mullaney, MetLife Auto & Home president.
Neubauer said the company began preparing its response even before the storm hit, deploying two specially equipped recreational vehicles that serve as command centers and handle claims on the spot.
One of these catastrophe response vehicles is located now in Ocean Springs, Miss.; the other in Hattiesburg, Miss., in a Home Depot parking lot.
One of them will eventually move into Louisiana, outside New Orleans, but for the time being, adjusters are not being allowed into the flood-ravaged city.
"We're hoping to get in there in the next two to three weeks," said Neubauer, who is based in Minneapolis, Minn., but is headed for Mobile, Ala., tomorrow.
MetLife is hearing from affected customers via telephone, in person at the response vehicles and through local agents.
Mullaney said it is too early to tell how much Katrina will cost MetLife, but indicated that the company expects thousands of its customers in the Gulf Coast region to have been affected.
"Our focus initially has been on getting out to our customers," Mullaney said. The company also is checking on its employees and agents in the region.
Because it does business in all 50 states, the company expects to be able to handle the claims. In Mississippi, MetLife holds about a 4-percent share of the property and casualty market, while in the other affected states it is lower, at about 1.5 percent, Mullaney said.
For customers in the affected areas, MetLife has implemented a 90-day grace period on premium payments for all types of insurance policies, including homeowners, automobile and life. That means no policies will be canceled for nonpayment until after Dec. 1.
On the Gulf Coast, Neubauer said the difficulties encountered by adjusters include gasoline shortages and scarce accommodations.
Typically, insurance adjusters head for the worst-hit areas after a storm and work outward from there. But because New Orleans is closed off, adjusters are doing the opposite this time.
That makes estimating how long insurance adjusters will need to view all damaged properties difficult, said John Eager, senior director of claims services for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America.
In a conference call with reporters yesterday, Eager said he was unsure exactly how many adjusters are now working in the region, but said it is well into the thousands. Allstate, the second-largest publicly traded property and casualty insurer, has some 3,000 adjusters of its own in the area.
Bob Warner, a claims adjuster with Louisiana Farm Bureau Insurance, said one of the biggest obstacles to providing relief is the many closed banks in the region. Adjusters are writing checks, but storm victims in many cases have nowhere to cash them.
"I don't know how to solve that problem, to get them where they can actually cash their check," Warner said on the Property & Casualty Institute conference call.
He added, "The only solution would be to hire a Brinks truck and haul it around."
One of the most sensitive jobs facing adjusters is distinguishing wind and rain damage from flood damage.
Traditional homeowner policies do not cover flood damage, and many properties in the Gulf Coast sustained both. Flood damage is covered only if a homeowner bought flood insurance through the federal government.
"That's where you need to have those highly skilled and very experienced adjusters," Neubauer said.
For his part, O'Connor said he is prepared to stay as long as possible in the Gulf Coast to help settle claims from Katrina.
"There's not one adjuster from MetLife who wants to go home," he declared.
One more MS ping, please?
MS Ping
What's so sad here is way too people
will hear the words, "Sorry you're not covered"
Thanks for the post and ping.
What a terrible job to have right now.
The losses are so sad.
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