…insurance isn’t just a numbers game. There’s humanity involved.
When the big insurers exited the Florida market, a start-up saw an opportunity…Read the story of the founding and growth of Northern Capital.
Once, a large garbage truck veered off the road and ran into a house we insured, demolishing a wall. The family was displaced — it was a tremendous hardship. It wasn’t our liability, but still, we had our claims crew out there within the hour, put up the family in a hotel, paid for the repairs ourselves, and then worked it out with the waste-management company. Things like that remind you that …insurance isn’t just a numbers game. There’s humanity involved.
Amazing! Sop, I bet these guys would have taken care of customers if a trailer of trailer of chicken parts broke loose in a hurricane and demolished a wall of a house they insurered. Homeowner insurers weren’t in there fighting for their customers after Katrina, they just let the NFIP cover the loss.
Great story. Nowdy this is a great find. I really love the way so many guys down in Florida have really taken what has been a problem and turned it into their opportunity. I also love their agent model. Counter to the direct model of sales but still working well for this company.
Not trying to sound pessimistic (but I’m just being a realist), this is a new company – give ’em time – once those claims start rolling in, they’ll be just like the rest of the ins. companies that find it’s more profitable to take in premiums than to pay out claims.
You’re right, Steve, about the opportunist aspect of this story – thought it’s not limited to Florida. Just look @ the various industries and professionals FROM OTHER STATES that bombarded the Katrina affected states to “set up shop & make some $.”
SHIRLEY HEFLIN
Pessimistic explanatory styles are the hallmark of the legal profession where realism is needed. So don’t feel bad about that. It is also a predictor variable of success in law school. Where an optimistic explanatory style is a predictor of success in activities such as sales, happy ness, living a long life, etc.
We had two types show up after Katrina. Those who were here to help and those who were here to help themselves. God blessed the helpers, they really saved our community.
The first blessing survivors of Katrina got was their lives. We lived. Not everyone was so blessed. I lost more friends and neighbors than I care to remember. SOP had an epic adventure of a biblical magnitude during Katrina, and he’s pretty much carried on with the bible story ever since.
However, the best part is I am where I want to be. The volunteers who came after Katrina helped restore our humanity. People like Nowdy have provided more than the readers will ever know in giving a voice to the peoples side. Lawyers have been given the chance of a lifetime to do the type of work they dreamed about as children. Same with doctors, ministers and just average citizens.
Our culture seemed to have been wiped out after Katrina. Katrina hit the Creole part of Louisiana and the Mississippi/Alabama Gulf Coast as if by design. The gumbo norms seemed to be washed out to sea when I watched the Katrina news from the safety of Florida. Looting and killing in New Orleans were bad. Death was in the water floating by babies as parents walked them to safety threw a gumbo of chemical waste. Some called for the abandonment of New Orleans. Surely, New Orleans and the surrounding area would not survive
But we did. In fact, we have really come back more like our gumbo selves than ever. Intensely communal, more apart and more together. Hurricanes didn’t destroy our culture— Hurricanes make our culture what it really is. America’s only gumbo culture. For it is in our relationship to Nature that our cultures unique style has been retained and strenghtened. Nobody can steal that from us. Only we can steal that from us and we’re not going to let that happen. We is all we had after Katrina. But it was enough.