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Life Health > Health Insurance > Life Insurance Strategies

Health Insurers Can Help Katrina Survivors Find Employers

By Allison Bell

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New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin today raised the possibility that Hurricane Katrina could lead to a number of life insurance claims as well as property-casualty insurance claims.[@@]

Nagin said during a press conference that Katrina “most likely” has killed thousands of New Orleans residents. Worried evacuees who have talked to relatives still in the New Orleans area are speculating on Web-based message boards that the number of dead could be even higher.

Millions of U.S. residents and about 80,000 residents of Louisiana and Mississippi die every year. That means that even a disaster that kills thousands of people may have only a modest effect on the 2005 mortality rate for the Gulf Coast and a negligible effect on mortality for the country as a whole. But, if Nagin’s estimate of loss of life proves to be accurate, Katrina could lead to a temporary increase in claims for insurers that have sold large numbers of policies to Gulf Coast residents.

In related news, life and health insurers are starting to organize to relief efforts.

Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, Minneapolis, a fraternal life insurer, says it expects to start with a commitment of about $3 million for Katrina relief efforts.

Humana Inc., Louisville, Ky., a managed care company with large operations in New Orleans, says it will be donating $1 million to relief efforts and matching employee contributions made before Nov. 1 dollar for dollar.

Humana itself has about 225 employees in the New Orleans area and is just starting to hear from them, company spokeswoman Mary Sellers says.

“We’re obviously very concerned about everybody’s welfare,” Sellers says.

Other companies and industry groups are just starting to hear the accounts of members who have survived Katrina.

“One of our board members [in New Orleans] had to drive 11 hours to find a place to stay,” says Jim Edwards, a spokesman for the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, Falls Church, Va.

NAIFA and other insurance groups are recommending that members and associates start by making contributions to the American Red Cross, Washington, and other major relief organizations.

Health insurers also may be able to play a role, by mobilizing customer service representatives to help put displaced Gulf Coast group health plan members in touch with employers or employee assistance programs, says Gus Stieber, a spokesman for Bensinger DuPont & Associates, Chicago, an EAP and work-life benefits firm.

Today, the offices of some Gulf Coast-based companies are destroyed. In other cases, Gulf Coast locations of national or multiregional companies have been wiped out. Even Gulf Coast facilities that have survived with relatively little damage may lack telephone service and Internet access.

A health insurance company is a natural source of communications assistance for displaced employees, because many employees who have no idea how to reach their employers under current conditions may still have their health insurance cards and health insurance company 800 numbers in their wallets, Stieber says.

At Bensinger DuPont, “we’re getting a lot of calls” as a result of Katrina, Stieber says.

Most of the calls have come from client employees in the Biloxi, Miss., area or employees evacuated from the New Orleans area, not from within the devastated New Orleans area, Stieber says.

But Bensinger DuPont put 2 employees of clients who did call from the New Orleans area through to their employers itself, rather than simply giving the employees the contact telephone numbers, Stieber says.

The employees who called from New Orleans had been out of touch for days and might not have had access to working telephones for hours if Bensinger DuPont had advised them to call other telephone numbers, Stieber says.

Many of the employees who are calling have lost everything, and they are asking for help with getting advances on paychecks or other financial assistance, Stieber says.

Stieber notes that one client will be paying to house 75 evacuated employees and their families in Houston for about 3 months.

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