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Florida Looking for NFIP Alternatives

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Last week, Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty announced that his office is in the process of developing guidelines for insurance companies to request approval to write primary flood insurance in the state. This announcement came just one day after Rebecca Matthews, McCarty’s deputy chief of staff, told the Florida Senate Banking and Insurance Committee that the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (FLOIR) was in talks with various insurance companies regarding writing primary flood coverage in the state. These developments are in response to continuing concerns about escalating flood insurance rates due to the Bigger-Waters Act of 2012.

The Biggert-Waters Act of 2012 extended the National Flood Insurance Program by several years while also putting in place several reforms meant to make the program more solvent. One of those reforms was a phasing in of actuarial flood insurance rates over time.

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For many the increased premium will be significant, if not severe. In Florida, the biggest hit will be to homes built prior to 1974 in high risk flood zones. At last week’s hearing it was reported that some of those homes could see rates rise from 0 to ,000.

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Current owners of those properties will continue to receive subsidized rates, but those subsidies will discontinue once the property is sold thus hindering the Florida real estate market.

Florida officials hope that the private primary flood coverage can serve as a viable alternative to the NFIP by providing lower premium rates, but there are significant hurdles to overcome. Private insurers will likely be hesitant to cover properties that the federal government has deemed high risk and there are legitimate concerns about the lack of available data and information to properly underwrite the risk.

“The private sector has not written flood insurance because when you start a company you have to have a ‘me, too’ filing of something that already exists,” said Locke Burt, an owner of Security First Insurance. No such company currently exists in Florida.

Florida Rep. Bryan Nelson added that “the big problem we have is we don’t have enough information to base a decision on, and until we have expected-loss ratios, I don’t think the private sector is going to be ready to jump in.”

Another NFIP alternative being considered would be the creation of a Florida flood insurance pool. Sen. David Simmons, chairman of the Florida Senate Banking and Insurance Committee, signaled that this could be an option if the private market is unable to respond fast enough. The hope is that the pool could provide lower rates than the NFIP.

Florida officials also continue to push for delays in NFIP rate hikes.

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Gov. Rick Scott called on President Obama to halt the hikes. “The president signed the bill. He can have an impact by stopping this.”

IICF, Sesame Workshop Announce Reading Program

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Alan and Grover promote reading program. Photo by Caroline McDonald

 A program to promote daily reading for young children was announced today at the New York Public Library in Manhattan. Making an appearance to bring attention to the Every Day is a Reading and Writing Day program were the popular Elmo, Grover and Alan Sesame Street characters.

“Studies have shown that less than half of children between birth and five years old are read to every day by parents or caregivers,” William E. Ross, chief executive officer of the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation said at the event. “So it’s not surprising that out of 50 children, 44 have reading problems when they enter the third grade.”

Even before starting school, children from high-income families have the advantage of 400 hours more of literacy-related activities than those from low-income families, according to the Sesame Workshop. By age four, a child from a high-income home is exposed to 35 million more words than a low-income child.

Ross noted that reading and writing skills set children up for success and that “The goal is for children to arrive at their classes with stronger skills.”

To help narrow the gap, the IICF and Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit, educational program behind Sesame Street, have partnered to form an online bilingual—English and Spanish—digital resource center. The resource includes games and activities to encourage parents, families and caregivers to interact with young children and improve their reading and writing skills.

Sesame Street is promoting the program nationwide, also making appearances in Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles.

“We have a civic responsibility to support the development of youth,” Ross said, adding that the insurance industry is caring and philanthropic and has the available resources to focus on national issues.

The IICF, established in 1994, is directed and funded by the insurance industry. The organization said it has contributed more than $20 million in grants to charities and 166,000 volunteer hours to hundreds of nonprofit community programs.

Goals of Every Day is a Reading and Writing Day are to:

• Help parents and caregivers realize the importance of their role in creating the foundation for literacy in their children.

• Give volunteers engaging, fun-filled and educational resources to positively impact the literacy development of undeserved children across the United States.

• Provide children with games and activities to stimulate their interest in talking, reading, and writing from an early age.

 

Leadership Lessons from Space

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As far as resumes go, it doesn’t get much more impressive than that of Colonel Chris Hadfield. Although now retired, Hadfield was an astronaut and Royal Canadian Air Force test pilot who flew multiple missions into space. He was the first Canadian to perform a space walk and most recently spent five months in orbit serving as the commander of the International Space Station. During that time, he became one of the most well-known astronauts in the world due to his use of social media. His Twitter feed has garnered over one million followers and his version of the David Bowie song “Space Oddity,” that he sang while on the space station (above), became a YouTube hit with more than 18 million views.

Earlier today, Col. Hadfield shared his experiences as a guest speaker at this year’s RIMS Canada Conference in Victoria, British Columbia. He talked about how it felt from the moment an astronaut wakes up in the morning of the day they are scheduled to go into space to when they touch down back on Earth after the mission is over.

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He talked about takeoffs that he said felt like a gorilla shaking you around and then tossing you in the air, the “magical” feeling of weightlessness, which is like gaining the ability to fly, and how landings are so violent all astronauts can do is laugh.

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What was most striking were the photos he shared of what the planet looks like from space and how seeing Earth from that vantage point changes one’s perspective on just about every human experience.

Hadfield’s story was also one about leadership and the challenges managing risk in such extreme environments where even the smallest detail could mean life or death.
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This was an experience shared by the pervious day’s speaker, Dr. Joe MacInnis, who, in addition to working with astronauts himself, was the physician and safety officer for James Cameron’s expedition seven miles below the sea to the Mariana Trench.

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The experiences of both men underlined the idea that leadership, even in such high-risk situations, is not a clinical, detached process. Instead, good leaders seem to excel to the so-called softer skills, like empathy, imagination or trust. It isn’t just about having a high level of skill that will get a team through a tough scenario and complete the task at hand. Rather, it’s also about being human and fostering relationships with team members to make sure everyone is motivated to reach a common goal.

It’s a simple lesson, but one worth remembering. After all if it works in space or underwater, it’s probably a pretty decent strategy in the office as well.

Twitter’s Data Mining Profits Show Lesser-Known Social Media Risk

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Data Mining

In an interview for this month’s issue of Risk Management magazine, lawyer and social media specialist Adam Cohen cautioned businesses that the risks of social networking sites extend beyond explosive posting faux pas.

“In most cases, corporations don’t realize that what they put on these social media services is all subject to the privacy policies and terms and conditions of the services,” said the eDiscovery expert and author of Social Media: Legal Risk and Corporate Policy. “Those provide a shocking amount of access by the social media services where they may take your data.”

As Twitter prepares for its much-anticipated IPO, the social media giant has released a torrent of information on its financial standing and practices. One of the most important tidbits for users concerns the site’s lesser-known side-business: data mining. In the first half of 2013, Twitter made $32 million by selling its data—namely, tweets—to other companies, a 53% increase from the year before.

So far this year, the company has raked in $47.5 million from selling user data to companies that analyze the social media posts for insights into news events and trends. Because of its real-time nature, Twitter is the primary contributor to data mining, though other social networks are frequently used in professional analysis.

This analysis is then sold to businesses for a slew of uses. “The types of ways that businesses are using Twitter data has gone deeper and deeper,” Chris Moody, the CEO of original Twitter data mining company Gnip, told Time. “We’re seeing it in supply chain and inventory management. It’s not just consumer brands that are engaging on Twitter.”The United Nations uses Twitter algorithms to pinpoint areas of social unrest. Burger chain Five Guys used “social intelligence technology” from New Brand Analytics to monitor quality in restaurants across the country and evaluate the appeal of a new fry size offering. Wall Street subscribers to one service, Dataminr, got a leg up on the S&P Index drop following the Navy Yard shooting. Five minutes before the news broke, users received an alert to take action after the company’s algorithms picked up on eyewitness reports and deduced from their timing, influence, and location that something urgent was taking place.

Clearly, there’s money to be made on both sides. According to the Wall Street Journal, the “social listening” business is booming, partially funded by millions of dollars in venture capital. Research firm IDC estimates that the entire “big data” market has grown seven times as quickly as the information technology sector as a whole, and may be valued at $16.9 billion in two years.

Data is mined for a variety of purposes – ones your company may even want to explore – but while there are benefits to the ends, the means translate into cyber exposures of which you may never know the details or depth. While the reputational risk of social media garners a lot of the attention – and rightfully so – there are increasingly tremendous exposures that lay in the forms just to sign up. With Twitter going public, there will only be further incentive to maximize revenue by selling user data, and more reason to approach corporate social media with caution.