I’m feeling pretty good about myself right about now. Not only did I contribute to help the people who’ve been left homeless, hungry, and hopeless by Hurricane Katrina yesterday but today I realized that one of my clients has some insureds down in the affected areas of Louisiana and Mississippi. I quickly identified them for them and we’ll make sure to mark their accounts as current.
I was also the first person to realize that there are quite a few people down there in the affected areas who won’t be able to get their pension checks on time because the mail isn’t being delivered. The multi-million dollar bank didn’t figure it out. The multi-billion dollar corporation didn’t figure it out. A plan is being formulated to address the situation.
So I’m feeling pretty darned good.
Technorati tag: Hurricane Katrina
Mom asks: “What are they supposed to do with those checks?” She says, they shouldn’t make out the checks at all—they should leave the money wherever it is—so it can keep making interest—they can use the interest to donate to the relief effort. That’s a good idea! Love, ann and Mother.
Actually, my suggestion on how to proceed was a little more complex than that. The first thing to do, IMO, is to contact the Post Office and determine what they’re doing with mail. If they’re holding the mail, there’s no sense cutting the checks (they may be required to in any case). If they’re actually delivering mail (!?), they’re legally obligated to cut and send the checks.
Glad you’re on top of the problem. There’s going to be lots of these sorts of cases of disruption. Apparently NO is where a large chunk of the federal government payroll is processed. They say they can shift it, so hopefully someone’s done their disaster backup facilities homework. Still, can’t be a piece of cake. Thank heavens lots of folks use electronic funds transfer these days.
It’s going to be difficult because of the mail already in facilities that are now under water… I know that mail order companies and some of those processing mail have already pulled those zip codes from their lists – that will cut back on some of the volume. I also think that large corporations are working on ways to deal with pulling those people out of their billing cycles. (after all it costs money to send out bills!)
I would guess that the USPS has a very large problem on it’s hands with forwarding mail. I’ll have to ask my friend who works for them, how they are handling things.
Amazing, isn’t it, the number of things you take for granted when life is running smoothly! Anyhow, Major Kudos to you for thinking of it among all the other problems that have cropped up!
Just don’t lose the checks or send them where looters and thieves might steal them and try to cash them. Keep track of the funds until the system is working again. Until then, disaster relief will have to take care of them.
New Orleans is a separate world. The rest of the gulf coast will recover. New Orleans is wrapped in corruption and incompetency. Nothing will save New Orleans from its own city government and its state government. A natural sinkhole for all good intentions and good deeds.