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Building Resilience, City by City

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With escalating risks and uncertainty around the globe, cities are challenged with understanding and circumventing those risks to stay vital. Much as in the business world, municipalities are moving towards resilience—the capability to survive, adapt and grow no matter what types of stresses are experienced.

Recognizing that they have much to offer each other, communities and businesses are often working together to pool their experience and knowledge. Helping to foster this is a project called the 100 Resilient Cities Challenge, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. The project has selected 100 cities around the world and provided funding for them to hire a chief resilience officer.

“Resilience is a study of complex systems,” said Charles Rath, president and CEO of Resilient Solutons 21. He spoke about resilience and his experiences with the 100 Resilient Cities Challenge at the recent forum, “Pathways to Resilience,” hosted by the American Security Project and Lloyd’s in Washington, D.C. “To me, resilience is a mechanism that allows us to look at our cities, communities, governments and businesses almost as living organisms—economic systems that are connected to social systems, that are connected to environmental systems and fiscal systems. One area we need to work on is understanding those connections and how these systems work.”Green space

Rath said that cities that have successfully implemented innovative resilient solutions have been able to “identify and communicate co-benefits. If you do some research around those jurisdictions that received funding, you’ll see interesting strategies that address their risks, but also have added economic, social and other co-benefits.”

Examples were evident after Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy. “Those communities that were able to bounce back quickest were those that had strong, socially cohesive societies. We also know that social cohesion drives economic activities in urban areas as well,” he said.

One of the first projects he worked on for the Resilient Cities Challenge was with the city of El Paso. “It is in the southwest and excessive heat is an issue they are dealing with,” he explained. “They have many parts of the city that see significant spikes in temperature, which leads to asthma, increased cooling costs and the list goes on. It’s projected over the next 70 or so years to increase 7 to 10 degrees, so it’s a big problem.”

To address the issue, he researched the issue and met with El Paso’s city manager. “We were able to pinpoint all of the different areas in El Paso where there is heat island effect,” he said. “We could tell what degree it was and roughly what was causing it.”

Causes for the escalating heat proved to be a lack of reflectivity, impermeable surfaces and lack of green space. “But it was at the point where we told him that he was costing the city about $150 million a year in increased cooling costs—because we were able to isolate the building outlines in the downtown area—that he began to pay attention,” he said. “Then we also showed him areas of the city where there was increased heat island effect where there was a significant amount of concrete. There were also a large percentage of children in the area who didn’t have access to parks.”

A solution for both dilemmas could be achieved by “transforming those vacant lots to pocket parks so that kids could have access to playgrounds.” he said, adding, “Those types of solutions with multiple co-benefits are an important element of what we are doing and this encouraged us to explore that.”

Insurers Will Be Found Not Guilty of Fraud in Sandy Payouts, Expert Says

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Insurers will be vindicated of accusations of fraud for rejecting flood damage claims made by Superstorm Sandy victims, an insurance industry expert predicts.

New York’s Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has opened an investigation into accusations against insurers Wright National Flood Insurance Co., units of Travelers Cos. and Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., which contract with the government’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), of rejecting property flood damage claims of Sandy victims based on falsified engineering reports, Bloomberg reported this week.

Called a Write Your Own program (WYO), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) allows participating property and casualty insurers to write and service the Standard Flood Insurance Policy in their own names.

Under the WYO program, insurers receive an expense allowance for policies written and claims processed while the federal government retains responsibility for underwriting losses.

The WYO Program operates as part of the NFIP, and is subject to its rules and regulations, according to FEMA, which oversees the flood insurance program.

“I am confident that the attorney general will be satisfied that insurers involved with the Write Your Own program were operating in a manner consistent with NFIP guidelines,” said Robert P. Hartwig, Ph.D., president of the Insurance Information Institute.

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Lawsuits in federal court accuse the insurers of colluding with engineering firms and others to deny or reduce damage payouts based on fraudulent reports. Schneiderman is investigating whether any crimes were committed. According to The Hartford Courant, more than 1,000 lawsuits are involved, alleging that homeowners were underpaid by insurance companies. Attorneys said insurers accepted altered engineering reports in a “peer review” process.

Insurers point out that the property disputes involve only about 1% of all flood claims and that the peer-review process is common practice—a quality control measure to make sure the federal government doesn’t overpay on flood claims.

Regarding the lawsuits that have been filed, Hartwig said, “I am equally confident that the evidence will indicate once again that insurers were operating in a manner consistent with NFIP guidelines.”

He explained that the lawsuits lodged against insurers alleging that certain insurers and firms hired to perform engineering analyses on flood-damaged properties were acting together to reduce or deny claims, “reflect a fundamental  misunderstanding of how the NFIP WYO program works. Engineering firms routinely and appropriately use a peer review process to review work performed. Occasionally, that process leads to additional opinions being reflected in an engineering report, which can thus impact the dollar amount received by claimants. This is part of a routine and necessary quality-control process.”

Hartwig said that this process is “no different than peer review in other technical and scientific disciplines. Using medicine as an example, test results are routinely reviewed by more than one medical professional before a diagnosis and course of treatments are rendered.”

Moreover, he added, insurers and the engineering firms hired are not financially motivated “to pay claimants anything other than a fair and accurate assessment of the losses compensable under the NFIP policy purchased. Insurers that consistently underpay or overpay claims can be removed from the program by the NFIP/FEMA.”

New York Institutes New Disaster Protocol for Insurers

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On October 28, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the establishment of a new Emergency Disaster Protocol that insurers should expect to follow in the event of a future natural disaster. The protocol was communicated to insurers in the form of a circular letter on the same day. The new protocol includes many of the same measures that were put into place following Superstorm Sandy.
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“During Superstorm Sandy these steps helped us speed up relief to New York families and businesses, and they will now become a standard part of our storm response arsenal,” said Governor Cuomo. “Insurance companies have a vital responsibility to promptly process claims for consumers hit by a natural disaster and this new emergency protocol will help make sure that they live up to that standard.”

In future natural disasters, insurers can expect the following measures, among others, to go into effect: the creation of an expedited process for temporarily licensing new claims adjusters; establishment of an online report card to hold insurance companies publicly accountable for their claims processing performance; creation of a mediation process for homeowners; and institution of a temporary moratorium on the canceling of policies in storm-stricken areas for non-payment of premiums.

“Having an emergency protocol for insurers on the shelf and ready to activate at a moment’s notice will help ensure that consumers are protected when another storm strikes,” said Benjamin M. Lawsky, New York’s superintendent of financial services. This protocol will make it crystal clear to insurers what is expected of them when responding to future natural disasters and helping families and businesses get back on their feet.”

In his letter to insurers, Superintendent Lawsky did state that the measures laid out in this new protocol are not all-encompassing, but that they are those the administration would be most likely to employ, “in whole or in part,” following a future disaster in the state.

Time to Get Serious About Climate Change Risks

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While arguments from climate change deniers have subsided, there is still discussion about the cause of climate change—natural or man made? But these arguments are mere time-wasters. Right now it’s critical to put the focus on managing this risk.

Insurers have it right. For years they have been pointing to the urgent need to deal with the issues surrounding climate change. Insurers know this global risk needs to be dealt with now—and in the future—and they can’t afford to get it wrong.

Johnny Chan, Ph.D., director of the Guy Carpenter Asia-Pacific Climate Impact Center said it best: “The debate on climate change and global warming has been intensely polarized. A great deal of this ‘noise’ has clouded the very real and emerging issues that we as an industry and society need to address. In order to adapt to climate change and the changing risk landscape, it is necessary to cut through this noise and focus on objective decisions to mitigate both the financial and social risks associated with climate change.”

Guy Carpenter said in a study on the risks of global warming that the biggest threat is rising sea-levels. According to the report, the greatest concern is coastal flooding, projected to increase as sea levels rise at least one to two feet by the end of the century. In other words, storms such as Superstorm Sandy on the U.S. East Coast and Cyclone Nilam in Eastern India are expected with greater frequency and severity.

Post-Sandy, we’ve seen how far-reaching the effects of a mega-storm can be. In fact, 25 miles or so away from the New York/New Jersey shoreline, northward along the Hudson River where I live, homes, businesses and communities were devastated by the storm surge. A number of businesses have closed and damaged homes still stand boarded and empty.

Bloomberg Businessweek reported that as the Federal Emergency Management Agency moves forward with its plans to update flood maps nationally, 350 coastal counties—and 32,000 homes—will be impacted. Homeowners and business owners are reeling from the price of flood insurance, which will escalate even more in designated areas unless they raise structures. One couple in Old Greenwich, Conn., will pay $300,000 to raise their home 15.5 feet, according to the article. Residents of towns that elect not to adopt the maps will not be eligible for National Flood Insurance Program coverage.

Hard-hit New York and New Jersey are taking the threat of rising seas seriously with announcements that a number of coastal structures will need to be raised. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in June declared a sweeping plan to help combat future flooding. The plan, which would include building flood walls, levees and bulkheads along 520 miles of coast, was projected to initially cost $20 billion.

Guy Carpenter’s report recommends that coastal areas re-examine their flood strategies including dykes and seawalls. Inland urban communities aren’t immune, as winds and heavy rains can cause flooding. These areas need to have storm water management infrastructure in place to accommodate larger volumes of rainwater and should upgrade codes and standards for infrastructure and land use that permits rainwater catchment basins.

While these preparations should be a priority for governments, they also compete with the need to replace aging infrastructures everywhere. Bridges, roads and water systems need repairs or replacement in every corner of the country. But many communities, crippled by debt and shrinking workforces, no doubt are focusing on needs as they arise. Hopefully the two can go hand-in-hand so that risk managers can build in flood control and other upgrades as they make the improvements so badly needed.