Recent events have companies asking whether their disaster recovery/business continuity plans (DR/BCP) are adequate in the face of a pandemic. Most plans were designed with natural disasters in mind. Although there is overlap, widespread illnesses that affect a company’s staff do call for some unique responses. The proper preparation can help insurers minimize the impact on their business and disruption to employees’ lives.
Creating “Social Distance” Between Key Segments of Staff
Insurers should think about where a virus of this type would have the most significant impact to current service levels, e.g., among senior underwriters. A firm can be just as vulnerable to illness as to a tropical storm if all of its underwriters are in one location serving one geographical area. However, responding to the potential spread of illness requires different, and sometimes simpler, solutions.
Any employees who feel sick should, of course, be encouraged to stay home, whether working or on sick leave. For those who do come into the office, however, the CDC recommends “social distancing”—keeping people a minimum of around three or four feet apart to reduce the chances of spreading germs. Examples could include locating employees in the same department on different floors or in different physical offices and having them collaborate virtually rather than in person. This is contrary to best practices for efficiency, but it may be a benefit in a pandemic. Widespread working from home offers another approach, but it may be more difficult than it appears.
Telecommuting Challenges
Many companies may assume that working from home is possible, but can the entire staff really do it? Companies from Silicon Valley to London’s Canary Wharf are running trial work-from-home days on a department-by-department basis to help surface any connectivity, communication, or accessibility issues that could arise. If a company currently relies on an internal phone system, it may be difficult to get in contact with people working from home. Companies that currently leverage collaboration systems (teleconferencing, VOIP, chat) that do not rely on phones will find it easier to keep employees accessible when working from home. At the same time, there are concerns about bandwidth crunches if remote work spikes in the course of a pandemic.
Insurers would be well advised to consider ways to communicate that do not require extensive bandwidth, such as text-based communication rather than teleconferencing and working off copies of a document on a voice call rather than screen sharing. As Novarica’s own Rob McIsaac notes, employers of all stripes will need to weigh carefully the benefits of proactivity against the possibility of unintended consequences.
External Staffing Resources: Secret Weapon or Achilles Heel?
Another way to prepare for a pandemic is to examine existing TPA relationships. If these relationships allow a company to scale rapidly, they may be used to replace employee absences due to illness. This is especially useful if the TPA is located far from where the internal employees are situated, as it reduces the likelihood that both will be hit with staff shortages simultaneously. At the same time, insurers need to be aware of risks to TPAs and BPO providers: Do they also have DR/BCP plans in place that take pandemics into consideration? Can the insurer take certain work back in-house if a BPO provider is severely impacted?
Natural disasters, blackouts, and similar calamities should not prevent an insurer from continuing to do business. With a little preparation, insurers can be certain that they will continue to operate in the face of a pandemic as well.
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