Disaster preparedness and recovery and storm and weather forecasting are new to, and very obvious on the exhibitor floor at RIMS. Since this year’s annual conference is in New Orleans, that’s no surprise.
The disaster theme began in the morning keynote, where an official from CDC talked about the potential for a pandemic.
While disasters natural and biological may be the theme, the common nuts and bolts of risk management are more what attendees are after. Several risk managers were left scratching their heads after the keynote.
The consensus was “well, that was kind of interesting, but the chances for a pandemic are pretty small, and there are a lot of other issue out there that I’m really worried about…like TRIA renewal, the insurance cycle, property rates…”
The disaster folks do have cool videos and charts, and have spent big bucks on their displays.
The other interesting attendee is Blackwater, the private security and protection firm that has been very visible in Iraq of late. They are pitching protection for American companies’ overseas locations and employees, and may have a ready audience among oil companies operating in Nigeria and the mid-east.
All in all, a different flavor this year, one that is just a bit disconnected from the real concerns of most risk managers.

I’m attending the annual gathering-of-the-property/casualty-industry-tribes, vendor trinket-and-trash -ree-for-all, expense-account-depletion event known as RIMS (Risk and Insurance Management Society’s annual meeting), and will be blogging from New Orleans for the next three days.
Before I dive into the exhibit hall, a quick note complimenting the organizers for their commitment to the local folks. This year RIMS coordinated a volunteer day, wherein insurance types donned working garb (jeans., not suits) and headed out to communities in the city to continue the clean up from Katrina.
This was not only a great thing for the organizers and organization to do, it may well have been a sobering experience for the risk managers. Few have ever seen the likes of the devastation they were cleaning up yesterday. Picking up debris while surrounded by broken glass, trash-strewn streets, empty lots and condemned buildings can’t help but add raw appreciation of the reality of “risk”; risk that in most cases has been viewed solely from a financial perspective.
This Risk:Real World may well be worth repeating.