STEP 2: COMMUNICATE
THE BARE FACTS: COMMUNICATING CLIMATE CHANGE Effective communication during and after natural disasters can play a huge role in a company’s profits from one year to the next. But what role do brokers play? Nina Hendy speaks to the experts. The broader insurance industry has never been under greater scrutiny when it comes to communicating accurate and timely information about climate-related risk to clients. Just in the last year alone, Australia has been battered by a number of catastrophic natural disasters, prompting insurers to put their own communication skills under the spotlight behind closed doors. Whether it’s fires, floods or storms, the sheer size of each natural disaster event places brokers under immense pressure to communicate in new and improved ways. A few of the most recent disasters paint the full picture. The Insurance Council of Australia confirms that insurers have handled more than 23,362* insurance claims from bushfire regions in New South Wales, Queensland, South
Australia and Victoria since November 8. Insurance losses are estimated at $1.9 billion* in total this bushfire season. During the December/January bushfire crisis, more than 60 insurance staff attended the evacuation centre in Melbourne to talk to evacuees about their needs. Insurers also booked hundreds of hotel and motel rooms as emergency accommodation, along with organising financial assistance to many customers. Meanwhile, the severe flooding in Queensland produced overall losses of almost $1 billion - only half of which was insured. HONESTY THE BEST POLICY It’s fair to say that communication skills are being tested more than any other time in history. Brokers are in the frontline, so are charged with the task of communicating accurate information about climate change in a credible and relevant manner, in a bid to protect clients from climate-related exposures. Of course, communication extends way beyond phone etiquette – it’s about showing compassion on the fire ground and organising emergency accommodation for often hundreds of displaced families at a time. For the past 20 years, reinsurer Munich Re has surveyed natural catastrophes. One report** reads: “It’s not just the number of natural catastrophes studied over the decades has increased … as a result of climate change, but the impact of these events (as anticipated) has also become much greater and more costly.” The research underscores the importance of really understanding how people react to information about the risk of natural catastrophes. * As at February 14. ** Risks posed by natural disasters.
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