More than 300 kilometers from the catastrophe, in a building on Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid and with the tranquility of the experience, a fundamental part of the response to the DANA natural disaster in the Mediterranean arc is managed. An office block that barely stands out in the hustle and bustle of the capital but where they have been working day and night for more than ten days to try to ensure that those who have lost everything can recover their life as soon as possible. It is the headquarters of the Insurance Compensation Consortium (CCS). The Consortium, dependent on the Ministry of Economy, is in charge of managing, processing and compensating the damage and deaths caused by the disaster to those affected who have valid insurance. A unique public entity in the world that only usually comes into operation to cover extraordinary risks. It all starts on October 29, although the Consortium has been on alert since previous days because DANA was causing some accidents in Andalusia. “We were already activated at an important alert level and we had many resources activated,” says Urko Elosegi, analyst and deputy director of Studies and International Relations at the CCS. On the same 29th, the disaster broke out, especially in the Valencian Community, and that same day the first two accidents were declared. Standard Related News If Montero wants to reinforce the disaster fund after having spent 80% Bruno Pérez The aid package for those affected The DANA has taken the Contingency Fund with barely 800 million euros in cash. On October 30, everything blows up. It is at that moment when they see the dimension of this and appreciate that the European Earth observation program, Copernicus, has been activated. This program is activated to try to “delimit the area in which the event has occurred and try to provide information by indirect means, satellite remote sensing means, through its satellites such as Sentinel, which has a very frequent number of captures.” . Already at that moment they see that the information that is being generated in Copernicus has as its authorized user the National Emergency Center, the CNEM, of the Civil Protection of Spain. “In those first moments, Copernicus helps us make a first approximation of the square kilometers,” says Elosegi. The program provides layers of information that improve as the hours go by until the flooded area and the layout of an explosive event like this one are specified. But, even so, the Consortium is clear that even Copernicus had fallen short in identifying the disaster.15,000. average daily claims are being received at the Insurance Compensation Consortium. At the close of this edition, there were more than 138,000 declared files. The moment in which the claims arrive en masse is when the entire procedure in the CCS is truly activated; From there they begin to receive more information about the magnitude. And since then they haven’t stopped. Celedonio Villamayor, Director of Operations of the institution, highlights that an average of 15,000 files are coming in per day, “a beast.” To put it in context, he gives an example: «The volcanic eruption of La Palma caused about 13,000 accidents; We are experiencing an eruption and a peak in accidents. “We had never seen it before.” In the Consortium they work with a pattern of behavior and point out that “the usual thing is that in the first 10-15 days the entire avalanche arrives and then begins to plummet.” In all this maelstrom they transmit a message of absolute tranquility that they will take care of everything, there are sufficient funds and all damages will be covered. Mayca Rodríguez, head of appraisals and civil engineer, explains how they use the cadastre to quantify damage to properties and assess compensation Guillermo NavarroOn the ground, the CCS has more than 800 experts. Of them, 550 are yours and the rest have been provided by insurers to support you. Not all of them are the same since they are divided by specialty areas. At the moment the policyholders declare the loss, all the information reaches them and a file is generated that goes to their internal software. After that, a well-oiled machinery comes into play. Each expert is assigned an area and each expert manages 50 files at the same time; without stopping, giving out the maximum possible. Once the expert finishes his work, he issues a report. This report is assigned to a processor and he/she verifies the process, although this is a very quick task and compensation can be issued on the same day of the appraisal. In fact, there are already those who have received the payment.800. More than 800 experts are on the ground. Of them, 550 are from the Consortium and the rest from the insurers, which have also contributed their resources. In the CCS they divide the claims into two branches, diverse (this includes homes, businesses…) and cars. And it is the latter that present the greatest challenge for the Consortium due to their dispersion and the difficulty of identification, that is, there are users who do not know where their car is because the water has carried it away; It may still be on the street, in a scrapyard, in a warehouse or on temporary land that they have enabled. In cars, the institution works with a map with two types of addresses: one of the place of occurrence and another of the place of repair, if it is repairable. In cases where it is not, it will go directly to scrapping or a temporary field where it will be stacked and registered. The Consortium thus generates a cloud of points for each file and records of the workshops that can receive vehicles for repair are also added. All this information is gathered together in the same record, divided by zones, workshops by specialties… In repairs, each workshop is assigned some files in a specific area, and all of this is assigned to a particular expert, to be able to calculate damages and initiate what before the repair. In any case, as Francisco de Asís, responsible for appraisals, points out, if they see that too much work is accumulating in one area, they can further divide the areas or redistribute work. Despite everything, repair is not the most handled scenario. . In the disasters attended by the Insurance Consortium there are usually 20% vehicles, and in this DANA it is more than 50%. The volume of cars is enormous, as is the damage. «70-80% of the vehicles will be a total loss. “This is an atypical accident,” says De Asís. Total loss means that it is impossible to repair and that is how its experts categorize it. These experts, in these scenarios, send the cars to scrapyards or temporary fields, and due to the volume there are, cars are even being referred to Madrid. This volume of cars has forced the creation of temporary fields in lots. There, the experts carry out triage work, inventorying each one with all the vehicle data and notifying the owners, who on many occasions did not even know where their car was. They highlight that they are also finding that there is looting and theft in the vehicles that are for scrapping because there are missing parts. For the work of identifying cars and owners, they rely on the DGT. The Consortium, in detail What is the Insurance Compensation Consortium? The Insurance Compensation Consortium (CCS) is an “instrument at the service of the Spanish insurance sector, with a long history”, as highlighted on its website. It is a public business entity attached to the Ministry of Economy that performs multiple functions in the field of insurance, and among them those related to the coverage of extraordinary risks, among others, stand out. Its highest decision-making body is the board of directors, which, chaired by the General Director of Insurance and Pension Funds, is made up of 14 members, seven of whom are senior managers of private insurance entities. What is its origin? To find its origin we must go back to 1941, when the Mutiny Risk Compensation Consortium was created; a provisional entity that was created to support insurers after the losses caused by the Civil War. In its current configuration it was created in 1954, when the provisional initiative finally became permanent. How is it financed? The assets of the Consortium are private and different from those of the State, and in addition it does not receive a budget allocation like other public institutions given its form of financing. «Its income comes, first of all, from the premiums paid by the owners of vehicles insured by this institution. Secondly, the surcharges on insurance policies, that is, the part of the premium that is paid when taking out home, commercial or automobile insurance, for example, and that goes to the CCS. And, finally, the profitability you obtain through your investments,” they indicate from the insurance company Mapfre. Is there a deadline to declare a claim? As indicated by the Consortium, the insurance law establishes a theoretical period of seven days for the insured to declare the claim, but this period is nothing more than a guideline and in practice it is not taken into account. The institution insists that exceeding this deadline has no consequences and that the only element that is usually taken into account in some cases is that the insured has taken so long to declare the claim that the situation has worsened as a result. For all this, the Consortium transmits a message of peace of mind that DANA claims will be attended to no matter when they are declared. What usually happens in these risks is that the great avalanche of parts arrives in the first 10-15 days after the event. Likewise, the Consortium makes use of technology, specifically video inspection so as not to have to travel to all areas. «We can capture a few photos, videos, know the condition of the vehicle and that allows us to justify the amount to be settled in an expert report. And that is speeding up the processing a lot,” says the person in charge of appraisals. In the case of the miscellaneous branch, the process is similar and different at the same time. They also use what they call an accident map in which they record all the files with points and organize them by expert areas. “This way we can control the load of each expert and make their work easier,” says Mayca Rodríguez, head of appraisals. In these maps, they also use layers of information provided by the Cadastre with the occupation of land in Spain that allows them to refine areas. Francisco de Asís Navarro, responsible for appraisals and industrial engineer, explains how the consortium works for compensation for damaged vehicles Guillermo NavarroThe expert goes to the home and now a decision has been made to speed everything up even more. If during the first expert visit it is noted that the contents have disappeared (furniture, appliances, etc.), the insured sum will be paid in advance directly to the affected person. In subsequent visits, later, walls, floors, stock in the case of businesses… are assessed and the compensation is recalculated. “It’s helping people a little to start over,” says Villamayor, the Operations Director. In addition, there are concepts such as cleaning expenses that are also compensated depending on the space and time spent. Thus, everything forms a tidal wave that will continue to extend over time. It is already the event with the highest number of accidents in the history of the Consortium and counting. The cost remains to be seen, but the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, estimated that it would be 3.5 billion euros. Something never seen before and that has tested the capacity of the Insurance Compensation Consortium.
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