IT'S STILL only late spring, and already we're hearing warnings about the upcoming hurricane season. As many as 15 hurricanes and nine other major storms are predicted in the months ahead. With so much damage yet unrepaired from 2004, this comes as bad news to those who live in the hurricane alley of the Southeastern U.S.

Surprisingly, many insurance agents–who provide critical service to clients when disasters strike–do not have their own disaster plans. An agency is always better off if it has one. If nothing else, thinking through the recovery steps and available options in the event of a disaster reduces some of the immediate shock and leads to a more effective response, should a disaster occur.

In addition to creating a response plan, an agency must recognize when to implement it. Wait too long before launching a response, and you may find yourself unable to execute the details because of the speed with which events unfold, especially in a rapidly progressing storm.

Agency employees are a critical part of an effective disaster response. A good plan anticipates what employees' needs may be and addresses them first. When their individual needs have been addressed, employees are more effective in helping the agency respond to its needs.

Hurricanes may be on our minds as their season approaches, but lesser events can have their own disastrous consequences. For example, our agency simply lost electrical power for 17 days during a 1998 ice storm. Most of our clients had claims to file for their damage. Our office was intact and we had a disaster plan, but–like most agencies–we had missed some key elements. For instance, our plan included a gas-powered generator to provide the office with electricity. Without electrical power, however, gas stations can't pump gas–and when they did get the pumps running, long lines slowed access to the gas. We also failed to recognize the extent of our power needs in winter, such as the extra start-up power large furnace motors need. Our plan worked well, but it could have worked better. We are better prepared for next time, having learned to factor a wider variety of environmental conditions into our plan. Building more contingencies into our plan now means we are better able to deal with the fewer unanticipated conditions later.

Creating a list of disastrous possibilities–e.g., hurricanes, fires, computer viruses and security breaches by computer hackers–is fairly easy. A recent personal experience taught me that small incidents we can never anticipate can also cause a near-crisis.

A few weeks ago, my cell phone took a dive into a dishpan full of water, having been accidentally bumped from its perch on a shelf near the kitchen sink. It was underwater–in its protective vinyl case–for less than five seconds, and only a small amount of water made it inside the case.

I set it aside to dry overnight, and in the morning it appeared to work–until I tried to dial a number, and watched as all the phone's functions began scrolling across the screen. By the time I made the inevitable trip to the cell phone store several hours later, the phone would no longer turn on. I figured the battery might have failed. At my first stop, the store didn't have a battery in stock. Two aggravating stops later, I learned the battery was fine, but the phone was DOA. The cost of my event seemed to be my lost time and the purchase of a new phone.

More bad news awaited at the time of purchase. If you can't get a phone to turn on, you see, you lose all the information you've put in it–and I had loaded a lot into mine. This lack of a data backup system is a potential problem with most cell phones. As a technician explained why I could not access my data, the hours I had spent inputting the information flashed through my head. I began frantically pressing the power button on the phone. Suddenly, it turned on. “No problem,” the technician said. “If the phone turns on, even if none of the functions work, we can retrieve your contact data.” Sweet words to hear, and the end of a bad experience.

The phone I purchased had a new data backup feature, which is becoming more widely available–typically using either an SD card or synchronization to a base PC. My phone had many contacts that were not anywhere else in our computer systems, so the loss would have been substantial.

Are you ready for this type of unanticipated disaster? If you have a good deal of contact information on your cell phone, consider at least a paper backup of the data. You never know when the unexpected disaster may occur. Add your cell phone and mobile connectivity device to your list of items to consider in the next revision of your disaster action plan. For more information on disaster planning, visit the www.iiaba.org ACT Web site and select Agency Improvement Tools for a practical guide to disaster planning.