Treutel Insurance Agency
Most agencies don’t ever experience 100% of their book of business filing claims for the same disaster within 30 days.
Quite possibly most agencies couldn’t survive such a colossal impact. To hear Angelyn Treutel of The Treutel Insurance Agency in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi tell it: “Our agency would not have survived without the professional service provided by Artizan”. Reading her story you’ll likely do what many agencies are starting to do, which is think long and hard about disaster recovery plans in light of new information.
Angelyn Treutel and her husband David run a successful agency in Mississippi. Though a relatively small agency with eight total personnel, they have been in business since 1925, with David being the third generation to provide insurance services to their neighbors on the Gulf Coast.
Angelyn was scheduled to present a professional workshop on InVEST (the National IIABA’s Insurance Education Program for High School and College Students) to fellow insurance agents in Houston, Texas on August 29, 2005. She traveled a few days earlier to be with her sister and to prepare for her presentation that Monday. By unfortunate coincidence, August 29, 2005 was also the day of the most destructive hurricane in U.S. history, Hurricane Katrina. The Challenge
Katrina blasts ashore with total destructive force
Angelyn and her sister watched the storm on television and by Sunday morning it was clear her hometown was in the path of the hurricane. She looked for ways to return home but by then all airports in the area had closed and there was no immediate way out of Houston. David began the process of securing the agency’s office, getting their computer data backups in hand, preparing the generator for potential use and basically “battening down the hatches.”
Monday morning arrived and Angelyn called her brother, still back in Mississippi, to learn that her parents’ home was flooded with 6 feet of water – still three hours before the worst part of the storm was going to be coming through.
Ever the professional, Angelyn gave her presentation, which took about two hours. At noon, she finished up and took a phone call from her son, a college student at Ole Miss in Oxford. From her son she learned that her own home was now under 12 feet of water and nearly all communications with the area had been severed. She knew her family was okay, but that their home and personal possessions were gone and that the office was going to be almost a total loss.
Bay St. Louis is built on a bluff, and has never taken any water since its discovery by D’Iberville in the 1600’s. It’s not even in a 100-year flood plain, so the force of Katrina and the devastating water came as a surprise. The Treutel’s had a solid plan for storms and recovery complete with backup generators, auxiliary fans and the like, but the fact of the unexpected water washed all of those plans away.
And most importantly, their office communications, and the communication infrastructure of the entire region, was damaged beyond immediate repair. Six of their eight personnel had lost their entire homes, and two ultimately never returned from leaving after the storm.
Clearly this was the “worst case scenario” they or any agency could have encountered, and clearly overtook any disaster plans that they had envisioned.
The Solution
An Email from the Right Person at the Right Time
Outside the devastation in Mississippi, Angelyn was still in Houston where she had access to phones and the Internet. Soon after the storm ended, she began to receive some emails from clients who had Treutel’s Web address and could get to it. She began entering claims from Houston via the Internet.
One email was from Richard Roy from Artizan who was writing to let Angelyn know that CSR24 was available to help with their calls. He had been watching the news and was aware that their town had suffered a direct hit and was undergoing serious flooding. Richard and Angelyn had served on a professional agency board together, though Treutel was not at that point an Artizan client. After a short discussion and some quick technical considerations on Angelyn’s part, an 800 number was established to roll the destroyed phone lines to Artizan’s call centers, to allow clients the ability to get a live person when they called the agency to submit a claim.
Data and Phone Backups Become Critical to Survival
Additionally, and equally as important, Artizan was able to retrieve the data on all Treutel's clients that Angelyn had backed up. With this data, Artizan could accept the calls and be informed on the background of the clients to be of even more assistance.
In her own words, "Artizan and CSR24 saved the day," Angelyn said. "We updated our Website to reflect the 800 number, and we had the phone company roll our old phone numbers to that new toll-free number, so that customers could call." Richard's email came to her on Wednesday, and by Thursday Artizan had the phones redirected and were taking calls for the agency. The data took slightly longer because Treutel wasn't a client in advance of the storm and had to recreate the database, but just days after the initial call from Richard to Angelyn, the total data and phone backup system was up and running.
Angelyn continues, "Artizan received calls from our customers, carriers, and adjusters 24/7 and emailed a summary of each request to our agency. Since there were no communication lines in our town during the day (and no plumbing, electricity, or utilities!!!), my husband and I would drive 3-4 hours each way to Mobile, Alabama to use computers and phones to follow-up with callers and place claims with carriers. We summarized the incoming calls on a spreadsheet and emailed the spreadsheet to a few fellow agents who assisted us with the call-backs. Since the devastation was so wide-spread, and with most of our customers "scattered" throughout the United States, we needed to compile their temporary addresses and phone numbers so that we could match up the adjusters with the insureds. Artizan was of CRITICAL assistance in this effort."
In processing over 8000 claims which amounted to almost 100% of their book of business, The Treutel Agency was able to receive every call and email and maintain the flow of information to their clients and carriers throughout the ordeal.
Artizan maintained management of the phones and data for nearly 4 months until the agency had found a new semi-permanent home.
The Big 3: People, Places and Phones
Back in Houston, Angelyn, her sister and her sister’s neighbors who wanted to help shopped in town to purchase travel trailers, water, generators, and supplies. They then drove a caravan back to Mississippi to get the agency into temporary headquarters outside, literally in a tent and a travel trailer.
As mentioned earlier, six of the Treutel’s eight employees had lost their homes entirely. There was no cell phone service, no electricity, no Internet access, and no communications.
The staff was devastated, but they came back to help their clients as they and their predecessors had been doing for 80 years in Bay St. Louis.
Seven months after the hurricane claims are still being processed by the agency, and the lives of the staff are still being rebuilt. It will likely take years to become whole again. Their office has found an alternate location with a one-year lease. Every computer, scanner, desk, phone, filing cabinet, and office article had to be completely replaced. Thankfully the agency was pretty well automated, so the data backups could be restored, but at the end of the day the technical hurdles were only part of the problem.
The Result
Lessons Learned
The agency had a lot of planning under their belt as any good Gulf Coast agency would in preparation for hurricanes and wind damage. But when the water eclipsed any and all flood plains ever recorded, all their good planning was literally under water.
Now, says Angelyn, “Every business needs, as part of their disaster plan, the capability for 24/7 service, the ability for customers to speak to a “live” person instead of an answering machine or waiting on hold for hours, and the documentation of each call via email at a minimum. In addition, Artizan was able to provide information to our customers on our new ‘tent-office’ location and provide the carrier 800 numbers to expedite the claims handling process.”
The Treutel Agency hasn’t survived for more than 80 years because they are an enormous size or because they have the most employees in the region – they don’t. They have succeeded and persisted because they have provided superior service and continuously adapted to changing conditions. Nothing prepared their agency for Hurricane Katrina.
But Angelyn has a sign in the office that reads “No Sniveling.” She believes that “we bloom where we’re planted” and they are dealing with the situation. Their agency luckily has carriers that are still standing with them and they are going to make it through even stronger for having survived such a traumatic crisis. They are writing new business and with the billions of dollars that are being pumped into the region for new homes and businesses with higher building standards, tourism is also being rebuilt. In five years they will be bigger and better than ever.
And with a partner like Artizan to rise to the occasion and help them through their toughest time ever, The Treutel Agency is a great example of the importance of the people part of business.
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