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By now, youve read plenty about the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the insurance issues these devastating events have raised, and the insurance industrys various responses to the crisis.
Youve seen videos of firefighters, policemen and emergency workers working tirelessly amidst the rubble, youve heard the plaintive voices of grieving families, and youve donated blood, food, money and/or volunteer service in hopes this will help bring healing, solace and strength.
All of that, and more, will no doubt continue for many weeks and months. Even so, people in the insurance and financial services sector must turn their thoughts and efforts back to the business of everyday business.
That is harder to do than to say. Many people calling into NUs products desk, presumably to talk about insurance products, say they are having a hard time focusing on work, much less promoting new products. In comparison to the horrific drama unfolding in New York and Washington, they say, their work seems insignificant.
How, they ask, do we present products against such a terrible backdrop? Where do we go from here?
Following are a few suggestions, offered in hopes that they will spark good solutions in agencies, companies, third party firms, and regulatory offices countrywide.
Surely, the questions go to the heart of purposethe reason you are working in the insurance and financial services sector, and your understanding of how your work fits into the economic fiber of America.
On a superficial level, you may think the reason you're in your line of work is because of the paycheck–that its just a job that pays the bills.
But if you dig a little deeper, you may find you are also in the business for its dynamic link to the human heartbeat. That is, it enables you to fulfill deeply held beliefs about human service and connectedness.
If this is so, once the shock and grief settle down a little more, you may find you can pick up your financial product banner once againperhaps with even more conviction than you had in the past.
Let me illustrate: One of my mentors, now deceased, was a card-carrying philosopher. We enjoyed many good conversations, but he positively hated the fact that I make my living by writing about insurance and financial services.
"How could you waste your writing talent that way?" he demanded of me on many occasions. "How could you write about something so dry and lifeless, so devoid of human values?"
When I answered that financial products are vitally essential anchors of security for most modern Americans, he grudgingly agreed. But when I added that people who work with such products encounter virtually every passion, need and value of human existence, he was flabbergasted. And when I said I believe that writing about such people and products enables me to be of genuine assistance, he was downright angry.
