As a result of his experience, Mr. Losson said his firm will revamp its business continuity programs to create one for a localized catastrophe and another for an event impacting a broader area.

In a smaller disaster, when a facility is made inoperable a plan might involve securing office space four blocks away--not the case with Katrina, he noted. He added that a small but effective plan is assigning "calling trees" to contact employees and retail agents to reassure the client base after a disaster.

His firm also was prepared with a cache of servers for computers that it trucked from Dallas to Houston, where it had relocated its New Orleans office. He said it was frustrating to have a data backup provider which had the backup tapes, but at an inaccessible location.

He said one Katrina "wild card" was the impact on employees, as many had personal difficulties to deal with--such as the dislocation of elderly parents. These situations made it "tough to keep morale up," he said.

Another wild card cited by Mr. Evans was the response of public agencies. Companies that had disaster plans depending on the City of New Orleans or the Federal Emergency Management Agency "ran into serious shortfalls," he said, noting that some adjusters "were pushed out of hotels by the Red Cross and FEMA guys and wound up sleeping in their cars."

Mr. Evans noted that with good planning, the claims process goes much smoother--relating that "within the first 48 hours, contractors and salvagers get sucked up pretty quickly." Those firms that do not make arrangements in advance get pushed to the end of a long line, he warned.

He said that effective disaster plans involve pre-selection of vendors who can help in a catastrophe, urging everyone to make sure those vendors have their own disaster recovery plans in place.

In Mr. Evans' view, the industry could probably do a better job informing the "Mom and Pop risk" about the need for disaster planning. This could involve something as simple as "tak[ing] the computers off the floor and put[ting] them on a table," he remarked. Discussing what can go awry, he mentioned one company with generators on hand but no gas, and an auto dealership that moved its cars to high ground--but not its records.

As an example of disaster planning success, he noted that of the nine hurricane-damaged casinos, the three that were quickly back up-and-running were taking in revenue that amounted to 65 percent of the take of all nine before the hurricane.

A third panelist--Patricia H. Roberts, president and chief executive officer for General Star excess and surplus lines in Stamford, Conn.--said General Star makes a point of analyzing and revising its disaster plans after every major event. She catalogued changes made after Sept. 11, 2001 and the four hurricanes of 2004.

The points she mentioned included improved communication plans, providing adjusters with longitude and latitude so they could locate properties without street signs, advertising, and a 24-hour telephone number on a Web site so clients could make contact.

In 2004, a surprise for her firm came in the area of regulatory demands for information, which it had difficulty providing in a timely fashion because of a cranky legacy system.

After Katrina, she said, the company found it lacked personal e-mail addresses and cell phone numbers to contact staff.

Ms. Roberts said it is critical to know where total accumulations of risk are, and to have enough adjusters on hand--noting that her firm trained casualty adjusters to handle property claims to relieve the load in a crisis. She also noted the importance of having electronic records-imaging. Since Katrina, she said, "we tend to plan now for worst-case scenario."