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Colorado Flood Damage Estimated at Over $2 Billion

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Colorado River at Flood Level

Economic damages from the recent flooding in Colorado are expected to surpass $2 billion, according to a recent report from catastrophe risk modeler Eqecat. Most of that financial burden will fall on residents because very little flood risk is insured in the state.

Between 1,500 and 1,800 homes have been destroyed and thousands of homes have been damaged, leaving more than 10,000 people displaced. The estimated total cost to repair destroyed homes averages $300 million and early reviews of residential flood damage indicate an average of $20,000 to restore each of the 17,500 flooded homes that were not destroyed. But because of exclusions to the basic homeowners insurance policy, most of the losses will not be covered by insurance.

Historically, a very small portion of homeowners purchase flood insurance on homes outside of the 100-year flood zones outlined by the U.

S. National Flood Insurance Program, which provides insurance as part of a mortgage. Of the 17 counties impacted, most of the areas are not within defined flood zones.

President Obama declared a major disaster in nine of the hardest-hit counties, making residents eligible for direct federal grants to repair their flood-damaged homes, replace personal property and provide rental assistance, Reuters reported. This status also allows workers left jobless by the disaster to claim unemployment payments of up to 26 weeks and makes special low-interest loans available to farmers and small businesses to help cover their uninsured flood losses.

While these measures may help with immediate need, the extensive damage will require months of recovery and more rain is currently expected to cause rivers to crest another foot above flood stage today. With hundreds of miles of road flooded and many bridges and dams damaged or destroyed, Eqecat estimated losses to commercial and government properties and related expenses to total around $1 billion. Colorado officials announced a Dec.

1 target to complete temporary fixes to at least some of the heavily damaged roads, according to the Weather Channel. State highway crews and National Guard troops have already begun work to repair highways to mountain towns cut off by the flooding – roads that will only lead to more treacherous situations in remote areas as winter approaches.

Residents of one town have been told they will be displaced for up to six months, according to NBC News. Lyons town administrator Victoria Simonsen told a public meeting last week that E. coli bacteria had contaminated the drinking water system and the wastewater system incurred at least $1 million in damage, leaving the town unlivable for the foreseeable future.

This morning, authorities announced the eighth confirmed death from the flooding. Reuters reported that the search for hundreds of missing residents is winding down, with all but a half-dozen people now accounted for.

PCI Poll Finds Public Support for TRIA

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Nearly 68% of likely voters favor extending the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) beyond December 31, 2014 according to a poll released by the Property Casualty Insurance Association of America (PCI).

The poll asked likely voters various questions relating to TRIA and the economic implications of a terrorist attack. In addition to showing public support for an extension of the TRIA program, the poll clearly shows a belief that the federal government should have some responsibility for the economic losses associated with a terrorist attack. Over 72% of those polled believe that a combination of the federal government and private insurance companies should be responsible for the costs from injuries to workers and property damage in the case of a terrorist attack.

Over 90% believe that protecting against losses from terrorist attacks against the United States should be at least in part a federal responsibility.

Many in the insurance industry, including RIMS, have been arguing in favor of a long term extension of TRIA, but this poll presents the first real evidence that there is a support among the general public as well. “We saw remarkable agreement among voters that the responsibility for the costs from injuries to workers and property damages from a terrorist attack should be shared amongst the federal government and private insurance companies. We also saw a true sense of patriotism, there was no division amongst rural and urban areas. Citizens understand the national economic implications of a terrorist attack and the importance of having a plan in place,” said Marguerite Tortorello, PCI’s senior vice president public affairs.

While the results do seem to bolster the arguments made by TRIA advocates, it does show little public awareness of the program. When asked whether it was true that TRIA was created after 9/11 only 32.7% of those surveyed responded that it was true while 26.7% responded false and 40.5% did not respond. This isn’t too surprising as the public tends to lack awareness of government program specifics. On the positive side, once informed that TRIA was in fact created, 73.2% stated that they supported the decision to create the TRIA program.

RMORSA Part 4: Risk Monitoring, Control & Action Plans

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The fourth step of ORSA implementation, risk monitoring, control, and action plans illustrates the importance of adhering to best practices when executing risk culture and governance, identification and prioritization, and risk appetite and tolerances.

With the necessary structure in place to track and collect risk intelligence, the next step involves orchestrating a plan for improvement. Why is a plan for improvement so critical? Besides limiting the risk exposure of your organization, consider that under the SEC Rule Proxy Disclosure Enhancements, boards of directors and executive leadership can be found negligent for having inadequate or ineffective ERM programs. Having a demonstrable plan for improvement, however, can greatly reduce or even exempt companies from penalties under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.

The Right Way to Monitor Control Activities

Boards and CEOs are depending on risk managers to monitor key risk indicators at the business process level. This can be accomplished one of two ways: testing or business metrics.

Testing provides a high level overview of whether a control is occurring, usually in the form of a simple pass/fail. Testing does not, however, provide actionable steps to take in order to improve a mitigation activity. The result is that many organizations are only testing compliance with internal policies, which may or may not tie back to the specific risks that the policies were designed to mitigate.

Here’s an example: an insurance organization with an online customer service system is experiencing unacceptable downtimes, and the appropriate staff members never seem to be available to fix the problem. The organization implements what would appear to be a reasonable control activity, by insisting that every member of the support team be trained to refresh the system.

The company tests internal compliance with this policy by tracking whether the online training has been completed. Unfortunately, even if everyone takes the training, the company has no idea whether this control is fulfilling its purpose.

In testing compliance to the policy, the organization has lost sight of the risk. If they had tracked a business metric, like system downtime, however, they would have realized that the controls in place made no difference to the impact or likelihood of system failure. Business metrics may have indicated that the system was going down during peak usage hours, like lunch, when staff was unavailable. With no business metric tracking, the organization continued with a Band-Aid approach when money might have been better spent upgrading system memory.

Developing the Action Plan

To avoid this common pitfall, your key business metrics need to be aligned not only with the control activities you’ve designed, but the risks they were designed for. Keeping track of these linkages can be impossible with two dimensional spreadsheets, but is critical to monitoring the risks you’ve identified so that your action plans and control activities are meaningful and measurable.

As a risk manager, approach process owners in need of assistance with mitigation plans geared toward their most severe risks. As you develop actionable plans for improvement, don’t lose sight of the end goal or fall into the trap of testing controls rather than monitoring risks.

Interested in the best way to monitor or audit your risk management program?

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Check out the RIMS Risk Maturity Model Audit Guide, also available through the RIMS Risk Maturity Model.

California Seeks to Limit Pro Athlete Workers Comp Claims

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Over the past few years, several former NFL players including Deion Sanders, Marshall Faulk and Michael Irvin have filed workers compensation claims in the state of California despite playing their careers outside of California. On September 9 the California legislature passed a bill intended to prevent these types of claims.

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The bill, AB 1309, would prevent professional athletes who have played less than 20% of their career in California, or have played seven or more seasons outside of California, from filing workers compensation claims in the state of California. Under current law anyone who pays state taxes in California are eligible for workers compensation benefits. This includes professional athletes who play for teams outside of California, but do pay state tax when they play away games in California.

Supporters of the legislation, including the National Football League and the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, claim that the legislation closes a loophole that is costing taxpayers money. “The state has a guarantee corporation, funded by taxpayers, that assumes responsibility for claims made and approved in the state, so out-of-state claims cause rates to be driven up for employers and taxpayers in the long run,” said Gary Toebben, Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce president and CEO.

The NFL Players Association (NFLPA) and AFL-CIO feel that athletes who play games in California, regardless of whether they play for a California team, should be entitled to benefits because they pay California taxes for the games they do play. The NFLPA claims that professional athletes pay $300 million per year in California income tax. Former NFL player Mel Owens, a county attorney for NBO Law who represents at least 1,000 retired football players suing for workers compensation in the state, claims that professional athlete claims in the state cost “one-tenth of one percent” of total losses to the California comp system. “Calling the California workers compensation law a ‘loophole’ is a fallacy—anyone that has played in California and got hurt in California pays state taxes and is entitled to benefits here,” said Owens.

According to state workers compensation records, there have been more than 4,400 claims filed by professional athletes in the state of California.

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Many of these are for head and neck injuries, with nearly 80% of them coming from former football players. By some estimates these claims could cost professional leagues as much as $1 billion to resolve. More than 2,300 of these claimants were also plaintiffs in the federal concussion lawsuit which the NFL recently settled for $765 million.

AB 1309 was passed by huge margins in both the California Assembly and Senate and is now on the desk of Governor Jerry Brown. The governor has until October 13 to sign or veto the bill.

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