Chicago-based Aon said a total of 32 offices were affected. Client services were moved to back-up locations and client calls to Aon Risk Services call center in New York were rerouted to the Glenview, Ill., center within 15 minutes.

Stephen P. Ban, senior vice president of marketing and communications, said all operations were up and running normally by Monday. He said one of the lessons from Sept. 11 was that its back-up facilities had to be upgraded to handle emergencies. The systems worked successfully during the blackout, he said.

Executives with Chicago-based Hub International Ltd., where offices closed Friday, had operations running by Monday, but not without some complications.

Bruce D. Guthart, president, U.S. operations for Hub, said that the biggest problem on Monday was when it found that a Verizon phone switch in the building was damaged by a power surge–something that he said occurred in a few New York office buildings. Phone and Internet service were unavailable for the day. Employees, he said, worked at home or used their cell phones to contact clients.

In Ontario, Phil Cornies, chief financial officer of Hub Group “Ontario” Inc., said 17 offices across the province were affected. By Monday, the main office in Brampton was at half its usual staffing level, and by Tuesday it was business as usual. Despite the outage, he said service was “pretty quiet” with more calls about new business coming in than claims.

Linda Collins, communication manager for Arthur J. Gallagher, based in Itasca, Ill., said offices in Cleveland and New York were closed for one day, but there was no major effect on operations.

For carriers, the same was true.

Sue Honeyman, spokesperson for The Hartford in Connecticut, said offices in Cleveland, Detroit, Toronto, as well as New York state offices in Troy, Garden City, Lake Success, Hauppauge, Riverhead and Manhattan were closed Friday, affecting 575 employees. All were up and running by Monday.

Hartford, Conn.-based Travelers saw nine offices affected by the blackout at its worst, said Laura Bradshaw, a company spokesperson. Business was re-routed to back-up locations and there was little impact on operations. For New York City employees, the biggest problem was transportation, she said, since much of the citys mass transit system was at a standstill.

A spokesperson at American International Group in New York City said the carriers contingency plans were put into effect during the blackout and claims services were up and running the next day. The New York office was open on Friday, he said.

Mayfield Village, Ohio-based Progressive said its main office was hit by the blackout and that its emergency back-up systems successfully kept service going. Calls to its Cleveland center were sent elsewhere and data continued to flow uninterrupted. By Friday, all Cleveland phone centers were open for business after power was restored.

Brokers said that as heavy as losses may turn out to be for merchants, they expect this to be a minor event in terms of insurance claims. Reporting light claims activity so far, some speculated that clients are well aware of the extent of their coverage and are not bothering to report losses because they know they wont meet their deductibles.

When asked if he thought clients would rethink coverage, Mr. Guthart said clients have purchased what they feel they can afford in a hard market and he doubted they would pay more premiums.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, August 25, 2003. Copyright 2003 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.