As I am writing this, it is late September. In about a week I'll be headed for New Orleans to attend the annual convention of the National Association of Professional Surplus Lines Offices. This will be my first visit to New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina nearly destroyed it two years ago, and I will do my best to inject cash into the local economy. It's the least I can do for a city I love like few others.

New Orleans and I go way back. I first visited it 40 years ago when I hitchhiked to the Crescent City during spring break of my freshman year in college. Naturally, I was attracted by the prospect of Bourbon Street and the fact that Louisiana's legal drinking age was 18 at the time. Pretty quickly, however, I saw there was a lot more to the city, including enchanting architecture; an extraordinary history; a culture steeped in literature and jazz, which I continue to enjoy; and a diverse yet harmonious citizenry. I returned to the city the following spring break. After I married, it was one of the first places I wanted to show to, and share with, my wife–who, if anything, loves the town even more than I do.
One of the best things about my job is that it has enabled me to return to New Orleans more times than I can remember, and I have had some great times there with people in the insurance business. One was Frank Arceri, a local independent agent for whom I once edited an article on insuring Mardi Gras parades. He offered to put me in one of the truck parades he covered, and a few years later, I accepted-having no idea how much money I would end up putting out for the “throws” that my wife and I spent hours slinging to what seemed like a million manic people lining the streets. (It was worth every penny, Frank.) Another was Warren Hope, a CPCU Society exec who ran a poetry journal on the side with his daughter. When I got my designation, he noticed I worked for a magazine and so drafted me for the Society's publications committee. One of my most memorable meals in New Orleans was with Warren in a restaurant on Royal Street. Another was with Jerry and Angie Tegan, both now retired from The Agency Specialty Product Network. They had put me in touch with Frank.
When I go to New Orleans this time, it will be as a participant in an industry that has fallen out of favor in the city. The reputation of the insurance business has taken a huge hit in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast. Some of it is deserved. Some insurers, like State Farm and Allstate, at times have played hardball with claimants, when it would have been in their best long-term interests to do otherwise. On the whole, however, the insurance business has served the city better than the state, local and federal governments whose representatives are often quick to criticize it.
All the negative news aside, the insurance industry is helping to rebuild New Orleans. Since Katrina hit, it has pumped $11 billion into Louisiana, with much of it going to the Crescent City. While you can read article after article about how insurers have failed New Orleans, you also can find examples of how the industry has had an effect that goes beyond mere dollars and cents.
One was alluded to in an article published last month in the Wall Street Journal that discussed how the dedicated staff of New Orleans' overachieving art museum has persevered in the wake of Katrina. It was contributed by Tom L. Freudenheim, a former art museum director himself who has served as the assistant secretary for museums at the Smithsonian Institution.
“These museum stalwarts soldier on,” Freudenheim wrote, “because they understand that the art museum can bring added value to the injured lives of New Orleanians–wound-salving that may be more critical for locals than for tourists.”
The article makes clear that the staff has relied more than a little on insurance. For instance, Katrina's winds disassembled a 45-foot-tall outdoor sculpture of steel tubes and cables created by Kenneth Snelson, “but after a $100,000 insurance-covered repair job the Snelson is back in place,” Freudenheim reported.
Insurance also was critical to the museum's preservation right after Katrina. A small group of employees managed to reach the museum, while FEMA and the National Guard were still trying to get their act together, to make sure the art stayed safe–and in the museum. “Subsequently, the museum's insurer, AXA, paid for retired New York City police officers to occupy the building for several months,” according to Freudenheim.
“I've always found an art museum visit to be the ideal escape from whatever oppressive realities might be confronting me,” Freudenheim wrote. “Kudos to this museum for maintaining that illusion!”
My wife and I visited the New Orleans museum about 10 years ago, when a display of jewel-bedecked Faberg? Easter eggs, created for Russia's last two czars, was on exhibit. After reading the Wall Street Journal article, we decided we'd return to the museum on this trip–after getting our beignets at Caf? Du Monde, of course.
As I look around, I'll think of the dedicated, hard-working staff that has held this important community institution together during the city's darkest hour. I'll also think of the insurance people who backed them up. Kudos to them too.