Infearenza!

Insurance agencies and other businesses would do well to pay attention to flu news.

I fear for you, insurance-selling America. Maybe it’s because I sit cooped up all day in my home office – away, thankfully, from the world and its germs. Maybe it’s because, in the run-up to Halloween, I watched one too many movies about zombie-making viruses. Maybe it’s because I read a rash of recent news reports about a raging biological threat that has closed schools in Massachusetts, Connecticut and elsewhere.

Whatever the reasons, I’ve developed a severe case of flu-fear. Or, as I will now deem it: infearenza.

You poor agents. How do you do it, living on the front lines of this dread seasonal sickness? When I hear stories, I am overcome with the careless bravery demonstrated each day by agents who perform foolishly heroic acts like shaking hands with clients, working in an office with other people, going out on sales calls and generally risking exposure to the Armageddonish cocktail of germs hiding silently in the hands, breath and presence of others.

OK; that’s extreme. But in all seriousness, insurance agencies and other businesses would do well to pay attention to flu news. The sickness has the potential to seriously disrupt day-to-day operations of a small business.

In September, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce offered guidelines for coping with an H1N1 flu pandemic – warning that employers could face crippling absenteeism as the flu season arrives.

The document, “It’s Not Flu as Usual: An H1N1 Business Preparedness Guide,” -which is available from the Chamber’s Web site – offers a 10-point checklist for businesses to prepare for the onslaught of flu. Preparation, the Chamber said, is a key to maintaining business operations through potential pandemics. Among them:

• Update sick leave policies and advise employees about staying away from the workplace if they are ill.
• Maintain a healthy work environment. Promote hand and respiratory hygiene. Ensure widespread and easy availability of alcohol-based hand sanitizer products, including wipes and gels.
• Establish an emergency communications plan and revise periodically. The plan should include key contacts (with backups) as well as the processes for communicating pandemic status and actions to employees, vendors, suppliers, and customers.
• Identify your company’s essential functions, including accounting, payroll, and information technology and the individuals who perform them. The absence of these individuals could seriously impair business continuity. Cross-train employees to perform essential functions.
• Check to see if core business activities can be sustained over several weeks with only a minimal workforce available.

As an industry with a unique perspective on business risks, and their avoidance, agents should be among the first to look into how this very real risk could affect their businesses. Many agencies, small ones in particular, often lack the administrative help to cope with the prolonged absence of one or more key employees. It may be unavoidable, but businesses should take steps now to be better prepared.