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Hurricane Harvey has left its mark on Houston, though not all of the aftereffects have been negative ones. In April, Houston’s city council approved Mayor Sylvester Turner’s flood protection reform proposals and later launched a program aimed at improving storm drain maintenance, inspections and repairs.
But the natural catastrophe-laden season did grind work to a halt for many companies, including Ashley General Agency, a Texas-based wholesale insurance operation.
“Our whole area was such a large [one] that people are still rebuilding, still getting back in their buildings,” said Billie Gorrell, Ashley General’s president, adding that some agents closed their doors because their offices were underwater. “And the sad part is there wasn’t a lot of coverage. There’s a lot of flood claims and damage, but not a lot of coverage.”
A recent report from Swiss Re stated that of the multibillion dollars in hurricane-related losses last year, only 42% was covered by insurance, leaving a significant portion of damages for governments and taxpayers to cover.
“People don’t think they need flood until they have a flood usually, on the commercial side,” said Gorrell. “We want to get into the flood business more than we already are. And we’re hoping that the customers would demand it. We’re seeing more players out there that are offering it, so hopefully, people won’t just have short-term memories and they’ll realize they need to carry it.”
Ashley General was able to benefit from the employee retention tax credit for employers located in a federally-declared disaster zone. The Chamber of Commerce approached Ashley General and let them know they were eligible for the credit, allowing the company a certain write-off for each employee they paid during the relief period.
“We were only down for two days, we did pay our employees, but we lost a lot of business because we had Harvey, Irma, all these storms. We couldn’t bind coverage for almost a month and then our agents couldn’t write business,” said Gorrell. “In our industry, we qualify for it more than anybody because of what we do and how we do it. Something like a collision repair shop, it’s not going to affect them as bad as it would what we do.”
For wholesale agents and brokers eager to boost their business in the coastal property environment, focusing on the data is key to unlocking better information for determining risk.
“We need to do a better job at getting higher deductibles, being more creative, looking at the risk very carefully and frankly, underwriting more than what we have done in the past, and doing the backend work,” said Gorrell. “We always have done a good job of it, but there’s so much data out there for us to get on property, and you can find out just about anything you want on a building. We just need to make sure we’re really looking at those risks and knowing how far they are from the coast and paying attention to all the details.”
