Disaster Relief Recommendations

By Colin Dougherty

The following outlines a recommended playbook for financial service organizations on how to service customers and account holders that have been affected by a hurricane or other natural disaster.

• Create a table that will house all zip codes affected.
• Compare disaster zip codes to customer and collateral addresses
• Primary Address
• Vehicle Address
• Other Address as desired
• Create a stored procedure or other processes that will update the account to designate it has been affected:
• Fields to be updated:
• Disaster Affected Area: Y/N
• Disaster Type: (Hurricane, Earthquake, etc.)
• Disaster Name: (If applicable, “Irma”, “Harvey”, etc.)
• Disaster Expiration: Date servicing relief will be discontinued
• Update fields via workflow during customer contact
• Relief Provided: Y/N
• Type of Relief: (See examples below, “Extension”, etc.)
• Right Party Contacted Regarding Disaster Relief: Y/N

• No Collection Calls
• No Collection Letters
• No Collection Texts
• Wizard / Pilot for incoming Calls
• Add to DR Queue / List

• Stop New Assignments
• Avoid putting agents at Risk during recovery
• Pause Existing Assignments – Manually determine case by case
• Prior to a storm, move vehicles in possession to a safe harbor location avoiding damage to existing collateral assets.

• Charge-Off Accounts
• Offer reduced settlement options
• Offer additional workout options – “Workout Calculator Rules”
• Extension Eligibility for affected areas – For customers that call in, offer an extension as appropriate.
• Deferment / Skip Payment for affected areas – For customers that call in, offer an deferment or allow them to skip 1 or 2 payments.
• Reduced Payments for defined timeframe
• New Payment Schedule Inserted
• Term Extended
• Temporary Interest rate reduction – SCRA model or SAC for LOC
• Remove Late Charges from being assessed for X time frame

• Text
• E-mail
• Letter
• For customers that haven’t been contacted or haven’t called in (RPC) in relief areas within the first week, resend communication indicating payment relief options are available should they be needed.
• Update customer facing web-site to indicated relief options are available for affected customers
• IVR – Route customers that have been affected to specific team members covering the operation support of the disaster relief.

• Communicate with Dealers if you are offering a disaster relief finance relief program for new vehicle loans / originations
• Substitution of Collateral

• Special Comment Code – ‘AW’ needs to be set
• Remove reporting per organization’s rules

• Related Party / Alternate Address
• Phone Number
• Spectrum: Expiration Date of Demo Changes