continued from page 19 have lots of questions. A lot of people are saying, “It would have been easier if I’d lost my whole house as opposed to going through that process when I had major damage, but not a whole loss.”
Reid Feist Looking at issues we heard about from a news perspective, the idea of different insurance adjusters came up a lot. Whether it was an independent operator or a company adjuster, residents would tell me, “We were talking to one guy for weeks or months, and it would change all the time.” Obviously, continuity in a disaster is an issue. I also covered the 2013 floods in southern Alberta, and we got a lot more email about problems with insurance companies back then. We didn’t get the same in Fort McMurray, and I think that probably the insurance companies had learned a bit from other disasters.
Shane Schreiber From a provincial perspective, the good is that you, Bill, were in the room. Bill and the insurance industry were in the Regional Emergency Operations Centre almost from day two of the event. That was critically important because we had an insurance expert in the operations centre who was also doing the communications. It also allowed us to plan in a collaborative manner the steps going forward. There was the white goods (fridges and freezers) disposal plan that worked well, largely because we had all the people in the same room coming up with a plan. I think it is now best practice to invite an insurance industry expert into the
operations centre to begin planning the re-entry and recovery ASAP. We’re going to continue to use this approach in Alberta, and in talking to my fellows across Canada, it sounds as if they like the idea too. It allows you to move at the speed of trust in a complex environment. The bad is that there were those who were uninsured or underinsured. Also, a number of people were just not aware of what was covered and how to move their claim forward. And then there’s the psychological impact and psychological impasse that people can come across when they’re faced with
residents and customers, we are one in the same. We are going to attempt to replicate this practice in every province across the country.
Mike Van Elsberg We also need to focus on the emotional recovery of our customers. Many people can make it through these situations quite well, but there’s also a segment of people who struggle emotionally. I don’t know if we’re putting enough time and effort into helping with emotional resilience. We still have customers today at Intact who don’t know what they want to do. They’re very frustrated, they’re very upset, but they simply can’t make a decision on what they want to do regardless of the support that’s there. So that’s something that we need to learn from. I don’t know if it’s an insurance industry thing, but when you’re looking at the resilience of a community, I think that everyone at the table needs to put their minds to that.
A lot of people are saying, “It would have been easier if I’d lost my whole house as opposed to going through that process when I had major damage, but not a whole loss.” having lost all of their belongings and their home, and they’re standing around a neighbourhood that’s been burnt out.
I weighed in here I just want to touch on that best practice. The sense of moving at the speed of trust is an important aspect in the response. I’m pleased to say that we have formalized an understanding between the Alberta Emergency Management Agency and IBC about including insurance representatives in future operations centres. Maybe between incidents we need to take some time to talk about how we can rely on one another and clarify the expectations of each side when responding so that when we are moving swiftly to help
20 The Alberta Broker December 2017–January 2018
A video of the full discussion is posted online at http://www.niccanada.com/ NICCtv.aspx where the panelists assess the tight level of engagement between industry, government and aid organizations and how this served the entire operation. They also considered the provocative question of whether it’s possible to satisfy everyone in such a large disaster. BILL ADAMS Vice President, Western & Pacific, Insurance Bureau of Canada