Insurance Policies for Crisis Communications, Part 2

Westmont College, a small, private Christian educational institution, suffered significant campus damage in the devastating November 2008 “Santa Barbara Tea Fire.” The day after the fire started, the school recognized the possibility that its students might have caused the disaster; the blogosphere and local community was rife with rumor and speculation. Though the true perpetrators were eventually found to be students from a neighboring school, with no Westmont students involved, in the heat of the initial hours the school needed to respond forthrightly. With time ticking, the urgent demands of police and fire authorities, the looming deadlines of media inquiries, frantic calls from parents and from neighboring residents, Westmont decision makers debated various, often emotional and defensive responses. The protection of students, privacy issues, assessing blame and the need to cooperate and show concern for the community all vied for attention. At the “request” of its insurance company, United Educators, Westmont called upon Fineman PR, previously vetted for these kinds of crises, to assist. Less than 24 hours after the fires began, Fineman PR was engaged and worked with the College through the night and weekend to develop effective communications plans and responses for a range of scenarios and audiences.

Westmont College was prepared the next morning to present itself, cogently, as a community and law enforcement resource for any investigation or for up to date information. College communications had to assume a delicate balance during a time of great loss, intense scrutiny, allegations and suspicion. In the end, Westmont College was acknowledged throughout the community and by the media for its responsible and forthright response.

With professional, experience-based communications, the insurance provider benefitted by minimizing the client institution’s total loss related to reputation, credibility and even legal exposure from misleading, false or clumsy communications. Because of this, the crisis event is less likely to contribute to dropped applications, enrollment and donations. The amount of time the institution is fully involved in its crisis may also be shortened if its communications do not add complications to the original situation.

The issue is also one of quality of service provided. If the insurance company vets the communications firms they wish to use and is confident in those firms’ qualifications and experience, its members are assured of having quick access to quality professional services during a time when members would have limited ability to find a provider themselves. As a crisis unfolds, crucial time delays are encountered as the institution looks for a provider. Also, less experienced providers, selected in a rush, may have limited ability to effect the desired outcome.

Insurance Policies for Crisis Communications, Part I

As the year ends, businesses and other organizations that confront volatile issues may want to look to their insurance policies for extended coverage. More and more, insurance companies are offering “public relations” riders to help limit the financial damage that can come from a “reputation” disaster. Insurance companies are not only offering this coverage, but some are going further by selecting trusted and experienced crisis communications firms that, if brought in immediately to provide sensible counsel, could actually limit the potential exposure and damage of a crisis on an organization.

A tragic accident in a rental housing development left the owner/developer and property manager exposed to charges of health and safety violations from some of its tenants. Though those allegations were found ultimately to be untrue, the situation (evolved) began to blossom into what could be viewed as unreasonable and unwarranted demands for accommodations, rent relief, lease abrogation and satisfaction of unrelated, pre-accident grievances. Almost all of these demands were leveraged with the threat and activity to publicize what amounted to rumor and speculation. Further damage from the original accident would then have the potential to arise in the form of a plummeting reputation in the community for that complex and all other developments of the same owner, then mass exodus of tenants, diminished traffic from new potential tenants and political fallout in surrounding communities where the owner wanted to build. As a result of our strategic counsel, the developer and property manager were lauded at the next meeting of the Town Council. At the heart of the matter, of course, our client was committed to doing the right thing.

The owner had an insurance policy rider for just this kind of situation and understood its need for an external communications resource. The company called on my agency, Fineman PR, to help them communicate the facts. We worked with local town officials, law enforcement and fire district officials to communicate the truth of what happened and began an intense program of tenant relations, media relations, community relations and Web communications to help these critical audiences understand that the developer and property manager were intent on going the last mile to help residents. We also worked closely with our client’s law firm to assure our work in the court of public opinion did not create added exposure in the court of law.

As companies look to 2010, my advice would be to take a close look at their insurance policies and understand what the provisions are for crisis communications. Bad news can go global within seconds and when you’re trying to weather a crisis, planning makes all the difference.

Don't Get Caught with Your Pants Down When the Whole World is Watching

Currently, there is so much buzz about what people and organizations are doing when confronted by a crisis.

While every crisis is different, there are some fundamental principles that should serve as a reference on how to get started resolving the challenge. And, while at this point in my career as crisis communications counsel these principles are burned in my mind, I still immediately turn to my list the moment I get a call for help. This was the subject of my agency’s very first blog post, more than a year ago, but with all the year-end interest in this topic, I will repeat it as a guideline for all the new friends I have made on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

We call it a “pantchek” as a memorable acronym, because we believe it is important not to get caught “with your pants down” once all eyes are turned your way.

• Public welfare is first priority

• All bad news out at once/Assemble the facts

• No blame, no speculation, do not repeat the charges

• Tell your side of the story/Take responsibility

• Care and concern

• High-level organization spokesperson

• Ensure that it will not happen again

• Keep separate plan for moving ahead

I believe these fundamentals are a good complement to the interview I did with Bulldog Reporter that was posted today.

Outbehaving the Competition

Just this week, my agency published its 15th annual Top 10 Blunders List. While we make no claims to be the supreme arbiter, we do base our credibility on a wealth of experience and success in helping clients navigate through turbulent seas (see www.finemanpr.com for crisis and other cases).

Crises come in all shapes and sizes, from national crises that impact a wide variety of audiences to industry-specific crises. For the past 21 years, Fineman PR has been called upon to handle front page crises including Avian Influenza fears, bacteria in packaged salads, animal rights activist bombings of academic researchers’ homes, riots and insurrection at KPFA Radio in Berkeley, tainted wine in the Napa Valley and, most recently, a tragic, fatal explosion at a Truckee housing development. The heart of the matter, though, is what sets our approach apart from others. Fineman PR’s byword is -- always take the high-road.

We just do not believe that effective and smart public relations strategy and tactics are about spin, deflecting blame or unleashing attack dog tactics; it’s about demonstrating the organization’s goodwill, good faith and interest in doing the right thing. History shows that companies who act responsibly and forthrightly stand a better chance at weathering the storm and may even increase brand trust while they’re at it. This is not “apology PR”; many crises are situations in which organizations are wrongly accused. But there is a need for an ethical dimension to the crisis response, and that is often forgotten.

Dov Seidman sums it up best in his new book How: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything when he makes the point that there is an increasing competitive advantage in outbehaving the competition.

Expanding on the Top 10 Blunders List

Fineman PR’s Top 10 Blunders List is a call to organizations to pay attention to their image as reflected in their organizational behavior and communications. Our list is not meant to degrade or defame but to educate and bring greater awareness to the value of professional communications counsel.

Everyone, including all organizations, make mistakes. Often a blunderer will make our List not because of the initial mistake but because of their response to that mistake, hence prolonging negative impressions. When confronted with a challenging situation, we counsel our clients to think of public welfare first, to avoid blame and speculation, to show care and concern for all affected audiences, and to assure those audiences that the issue is being resolved with good faith.

While we strongly believe that organizations must take responsibility when the fault is theirs, it is just as critical for organizations to understand that they have a responsibility to counter false charges and to set the record straight. No person or organization should allow others to tell their story for them. No person or organization can afford to allow misinformation to stand without a correction. The key to these kinds of assertive communications is in the tone. Defensiveness, obstinacy, arrogance, and name calling should not be options.

This year’s Top 10 PR Blunders List was marked especially by the role that online and social media played. This is a relatively new area of PR and many companies stumble when they miscalculate social media’s potential for influence. Examples here would include the United Airlines, Domino’s, KFC and Horizon Group Management Blunders.

We have received several inquiries about why some high profile situations were left off the list such as Tiger Woods and “Balloon Boy.” In our professional opinions, not all news making incidents are necessarily “public relations blunders.” Some that we ignore are too tragic, some are too personal, some are plain criminal acts, and some are just instances of moral turpitude.

As always, I welcome your comments.

Slammed in the Media? PR Tips for A Savvy Response

Ideally, every business would have a PR counselor ready for action at a moment’s notice. Picture a powerful team of superheroes stashed in your desk drawer like an earthquake or snake bite kit. But unlike larger businesses with internal communications teams and expert agency counselors, many smaller businesses either don’t have the time, money or means to fund communications resources like the big guys. Still, every business should have the basic tools to act in the event that their reputation is on the line.

Recently, the small Alzheimer’s facility where my relative receives care was negatively portrayed on the front page of a major daily newspaper. The article profiled one family’s struggle in shifting a relative from an assisted living residence to a specialized care facility. The reality is that few facilities have the technical licensing to care for patients with certain stages of Alzheimer’s; past a certain stage, options are not as extensive as one would hope. The article was just one more reminder that every business is vulnerable to public criticism online and in traditional media.

Even with the best of intentions and a great business product or service, it only takes one brutal shot by a vocal detractor or unhappy client to do damage to even highly regarded businesses.

Here’s a quick PR kit for small businesses to help prepare and hopefully avoid PR disaster, or, to deftly handle a media crisis once it hits. Slammed in the Media? PR for Small Businesses

Insurers Vetting Crisis Communications Counselors for Policy Holders

Large industrial and institutional insurers are beginning to develop policies that seriously consider the advantages of effective communications for their policy holders facing a crisis.

Last year, my agency was engaged by the nation’s largest insurer of colleges and universities to provide communications for their clients in a crisis.

The insurance company’s strategy received a real payoff last October when policy holder Westmont College was caught in the middle of the Santa Barbara Tea Fire, a terrible conflagration in an outlying area of Santa Barbara, Calif. Almost immediately it was rumored that Westmont students were involved in starting the fire, not a surprising development in the annals of traditional town and gown friction. The College was committed to working with local authorities to investigate the disaster while needing to protect the rights and privacy of its shell-shocked students and safeguard its own reputation and exposure as an unsecure institution in an unsafe area.

The insurance company instructed Westmont to call Fineman PR to help assure the college’s effective communications and as a condition of coverage. In less than a week’s time, Fineman PR provided counsel to the school which ultimately led to its working effectively with authorities and with the community while demonstrating concern for its student body. Both the Los Angeles Times and Santa Barbara News-Press published the story of Westmont’s response along with the complete Q&A that the school had posted to its web site.

With professional, experience-based communications, insurance providers benefit by minimizing the client institution’s total loss related to reputation, credibility and even legal exposure from misleading, false or clumsy communications. Because of this, the crisis event is less likely to contribute to dropped applications, enrollment and donations. The amount of time the institution is fully involved in its crisis may also be shortened if its communications do not add complications to the original situation.

The issue is also one of quality of service provided. If the insurance company vets the communications firms they wish to use and is confident in those firms’ qualifications and experience, its members are assured of having quick access to quality professional services during a time when members would have limited ability to find a provider themselves. As a crisis unfolds, crucial time delays are encountered as the institution looks for a provider. Also, less experienced providers, selected in a rush, may have limited ability to affect the desired outcome.