I’ve been lurking for about 2 months thinking about what I had to contribute. I have a many ideas rattling through my head on how to convince mainstream Americans (and other countries of course) to begin the process of preparing for all sorts of emergencies.
I’m thinking of how to get people started – not to prep for 6 months of all sorts of disasters (too hard at first) but just to take that initial step – 3 days, even. I thought about getting prepared for 3 days for about 5 years before I finally did something. Now I see once you cross that first step, it is a lot easier to think about more long term – once I started prepping for 2 weeks, I realized 3 months would be just as easy, for example.
So here are a bunch of ideas I’ve been thinking of, thought I would post them for everyone to see. I apologize for length — with my life you get a lot of time and then no time so I’m making the most of a free morning…
1) People are motivated less by fear of something unknown “Bird Flu is coming, take cover!!” than by fear of being embarrassed, looking impotent, incapable, etc. So, commercials and ads on that level.
For example: A TV public service announcement. It is dinner time. Wind/storm outsidee. Family getting ready, cooking something in the microwave when Oops, power goes out, no warning. Kids stumble and trip, meal is thawing in microwave, can’t eat it; Dad rustles around in the utility drawer looking for a flashlight, can’t find, no batteries, etc. etc. Pan to neighbor’s house, family is calmly eating dinner by kerosene lamplight “Good thing we had these camping supplies, honey!” Voice over – “you never know when the unexpected may happen. Why not take care of your family, be prepared?”
2) People are frankly bad at math. Tell them one gallon per person per day and then the bottles of water or soda they have are liters and it is too much trouble to do the math. A friend of mine has one case of ½ liter bottles as prep for a family of four. That’s just enough for 1 day, but she hasn’t thought about it like that.
Suggestion: I’ve been telling my family to buy one case of ½ liter water bottles (about 3 gallons total) per person and they instantly have a 3-day supply. Seems to require less thought and storage space as they can stack).
3) People do not think they have storage space; pantries are usually just to store a week’s supply of food until you go back to the store for more. On a different thread I noticed someone mentioned it helps to actually SEE how much a week (2 week’s, 2 months’ whatever) worth of food actually IS. This is true – I think people really need to see what a pantry looks like to get an idea.
4) People don’t feel they have time to think ahead. I think this is ridiculous but let’s work with it. Stores could have a real opportunity here. They could package “PantryPrep Readiness Boxes” for people who just can’t think ahead. Sized for 1, 2 or 4 people for 3 days. Because if you tell people (like me 2 months ago) to just double up on foods you like, here’s what happens. You go to the store for dinner that night. You think, “Oh, I should really get a dinner for my pantry prep, too.” You buy something that looks good. You go home and put it on your shelf (cuz you don’t have a real storage pantry) and then in three more nights, when you are pressed for time and don’t have anything, you eat your prepurchased food and figure you will replace it later, but you forget – so you never really get ahead. It needs to be kept in a box so you don’t see it. Out of sight out of mind!
Higher end stores could provide this (for sale) with luxury foods, more basic warehouse stores would make cheaper versions. Include recipe cards and directions for cooking for people who don’t know how. A 3-day supply would be more affordable than a week’s worth. It would get people started down the right track. People on food stamps could use food stamps to buy these kits, perhaps at half price or better, 2 for 1.
5) *Require* people to maintain a supply of food, water, and meds for 3 days. To be self-sufficient for 3 days, with a suggested goal of 1 to 2 weeks. But 3 days is obligatory (in the same way that most states require seatbelts and helmets on motorcycles, etc. The thinking is that of people do not take these precautions, in an emergency they become burdens to the community. ) I know this idea would be extremely unpopular with libertarians, etc. but it is just a thought – making something illegal does have a way of getting people’s attention….)
Along those lines ….
6) “Your Civic Duty” campaign – appeal to people’s sense of civic pride – our community takes care of itself…. we are prepared to support our own for at least 3 days (later, a week or 2….)
7) Also an appeal to options/choices….Americans like to have choices. I convinced my sister with this one…. If you do not have a supply of water at home, you quickly lose options if your water supply fails you for any reason. You must leave to find something. If you have even a 3 day supply, you have a whole lot more options than those around you who do not have any choice but to leave to find water.
8) Pantry Days – as a nation, we delegate 1 day each week/month/whatever to eating pantry only food – get Americans back in the habit of actually cooking meals instead of doing drive through, etc. Pantry Potlucks (invite neighbors over) etc.
9) People are motivated by comparing to others – we want to be as good as or a little ahead. Ads/campaigns showing prepared families – showing their 2 week’s supplies, etc. How long are YOU prepared for? (I know I feel really teeny when I read of people on fluwikie who are set for a year, for example! (-) so, I don’t compare myself to y’all; I go to my moms groups and compare myself with the moms who have to shop THAT NIGHT for dinner, every night. Makes me feel smug, I admit it – have to get my cheap thrills where I can….)
My overall thinking in talking to friends and neighbors is that no one can even contemplate the idea of saving 2 weeks of pantry food. I’m talking about just regular, suburban families, busy with the pool and sports, etc., not even thinking about hurricanes and panflu.
Also, everyone is seriously in debt and has already run up credit cards pretty high, they are very wary of spending more money on things they think they will never use. We have to make it a little easy for them to wrap their minds around this idea. I think they need to think small, and have a little help.
Thoughts?
ACM
I like the idea for your public service announcement! I can definitely see that.
Right on. You are a do’er and a realist. That is what we need here.
That’s quite the post! :-) But it’s lovely. I like how you take the emphasis off of bird flu and shift it to just being responsible in general, as well as acknowledging that people feel too busy and too bewildered to know how to start. I think the 3-day food kits are a great idea. Good work.
4,7, and 8 are also excellent ideas. It’s only a matter of making them reality now. Many of your ideas would work. They just need to be implemented.
wanderer at 11:02 ….acknowledging that people feel too busy and too bewildered to know how to start….
That is an EXCELLENT description of what I see as the problem!
Have you seen Florida’s commercials for floridadisaster.org?
They use some of the same “pressures” for prepping … but it is very spooky. They play some real 911 calls that happened during the hurricanes last year. People were calling for emergency assistance and the 911 operator was having to explain that personnel cannot come out until after the storm is passed. Makes a great point.
Average - you’re anything but your namesake. Welcome aboard and keep those great ideas coming!
There has to be a perceived demand before private companies (or even public agencies) would take action. It wouldn’t hurt for us to put together lists of what would be in 3-day boxes that provide complete protein for a family of 4 that are designed for people who don’t cook often. (For example, they’d contain rice mixes and canned beans rather than bags of plain rice & bags of dry beans.) The choices could be aimed at a certain ethnic style, such as cajun, asian, or mexican. If we calculated the cost of each box based on current grocery store prices, we’d have an upper bound to what the cost would be if they were mass-produced (if prices don’t go up too much in the interim). Maybe the local food pantry could be enlisted in planning.
This sounds like a really good way to begin, with an all-hazards, 3-day, approach. Then when the panflu materials that Dude and the others are working are finished, the focus can be turned to pandemic flu.
No. 7, choices: “When you can’t get to the store, do you want to be scrounging old Hallowe’en candy and stale saltines or go into your pantry and assemble a meal your family likes?”
Someone wrote about an emergency preparation notice put into the electric bill sent to every household (in a New England state). We have to get coverage like that somehow. IMO, the Red Cross would approve but they wouldn’t be able to cover the costs. Maybe corporate sponsorship - like Johnson and Johnson, because if every household had a good first-aid kit, J&J would sell a lot of bandaids. Energizer or Duracell, for the flashlight and radio batteries. Hormel, Chicken of the Sea, Quaker Oats all make products we would store.
Question is, is preparation acceptable enough to make corporations feel comfortable being associated with it?
Mari – at 11:25
The Salvation Army and/or the Red Cross might already have that figured out.
Local ministries also put together holiday food boxes for people from contributions via local grocery stores. You might want to see what they list as coming in each box and see how many people that should feed and whether that is for one meal or includes leftovers … then extrapolate from there.
Kathy in FL - good point. Now if one of the Flu Wikians would contact the Salvation Army, Red Cross, and local food banks & find out what they do so we have some data . . .
I think the Salvation Army and Red Cross usually set up meal tents and serve a lot of people as opposed to handing out individual boxes, however.
Average Concerned Mom, I agree with LauraB. You are not average. :-) These are excellent ideas. Unless you are going to be too busy applying to head up FEMA this year, I think some of your ideas should be discussed to see what form of your suggestions might bear fruit.
To me, shopping every night for dinner is insane. If one leaves work, goes by the store, shops for 15–30 minutes or more, Stands in line at the check out with all the other nightly preparers, then drives home. By the time you get home, are you too tired to cook? Mealtime is a precious time to sit with your family and have valuable communication time. Not mention just being together. I actually shop every month or every six weeks. I plan ahead of time to stock the pantry, so I will have the luxury of having it all there and save will 30–40 hours in travel time to and from store and shopping time per month. THAT’S A WHOLE DAY! I can spend an hour in the grocery store and haul out two carts to the car and I’m done. With occasional side trips for fresh veggies of course (although we produce most of our own fresh on a year round basis).
I wonder if you could use your mom’s group as a brainstorming exercise. Get a speaker or am organizer to come and talk about the positives and negatives of learning how to cook from scratch. There are distinct social, emotional, nurturing aspects of food preparation. (Not to mention financial benefits) What are the benefits for moms in that age range to learn to keep a well stocked pantry? Do they think it’s important? What would they do in an emergency? What would happen to their families if they didn’t have access to food for 3 weeks. 6 weeks? Take notes and report back!!!!!!
P.S. I don’t even know why I am making suggestions. You are so creative and thoughtful in your concerns. I say go forth and get the world preparing! DO YOU NEED A FLUWIKIE FLAG/BANNER to attach to a pole to ride through the streets of your hamlet with spreading the news? ;-) lol! If they choose a logo, this could be an application! lol!
Maybe AverageMom wants to keep a low profile where she lives. If these ideas had wide currency, it wouldn’t be so risky to discuss them with everyone, but I wouldn’t want to be known as a prepper by those who scoff at the idea in good times but remember where I live when TSHTF.
On the other hand, talking about whatever weather extremes occur in your area and how tough it is to be stuck without any XXX can start people thinking.
Jane - not only might corporations not want to be associated, but citizens might look upon info from coproations as self-serving. I think it needs to come from “neutral” and credible sources. Unfortuantely the Red Cross has lost some credibility in the last few years. The gov’t isn’t credible, we all know that. Lots of people love Oprah but her show didn’t seem to have done much. What other organizations/people could be utilized? I don’t know how much could be done on a national level vs more localized?
AverageMom has some great ideas, I would just like to see our goverment using them……….
I think something along these lines is so necessary. For me the biggest problem in prepping was lack of time. I knew about BF, had seen the Oprah show and knew I needed to do something but researching and shopping takes time. I work 12 hours days and have two small children, believe me. I had no time. This is not an excuse, I really didnt.
Lucky for us that my Au Pair didnt work out and I had to take a month off work to sort out my kids. I took that month to prep. I researched, found this site, did my shopping etc.
Time I think is a big factor. Now that the main bit is done, I just top up a little everytime I shop. But the initial prepping is very time consuming.
Average Concerned Mom you have hit the nail on the head….a very thorough, well organized, compassionate, frugal and sad post. Sad because you’ve nailed us as the unprepared people that most Americans & probably most people in any country are, when we could be so much different with just a little effort.
I’m setting up a ‘shopping buddy’ system with a friend of mine. It works like this: she drives, I show her what to buy & she hauls it out to the car & stores it at home.
If grocers would allow fluwikie volunteers to station themselves in the stores & be shopping buddies for customers as they come in, they could even set up appointments perhaps - we at least manage to keep appoints to have haircuts & have our nails done so maybe we could ‘glamorize’ having an appointment with a volunteer shopping buddy. It might be that we could provide an accepted ‘list’ and just help them shop the dairy, or the meats on the list, & then set up another appointment for the fruits and desserts, etc.
Anyway, you’re right about us not responding to the fear of some specific thing as much as being ‘found out’ for not doing what should be expected of us to prepare for our families. It’s like feeling like you’ve been caught with your pants down.
I do think that if there were some kind of one-on-one, there needs to be an understanding with the grocer about what will be said, and what WON’T be said. More damage can be done by someone ‘winging it’ and turning people off, than by someone who consistently sticks with a plan, gains trust through identically repeated presentations, etc.
This last weekend as I participated in Relay for Life, I finally stick my neck out and brought attention to myself and my “bird flu obsession”. It actually began with a man who sits by my husband at work commenting on a business article about the bird flu. A lady overheard and said she was concerned…but what was she supposed to do? GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY!! He husband said, “I don’t know, but go to fluwiki.com…my wife is always on that!” I was floored…couldn’t believe that he claimed he didn’t know.
Anyway, I am giving a long-winded intro to say that I brought it up to the lady and a dozen others at the event. Most said they didn’t think it would happen, several said it would but we can’t do enough on our own to make it, and others said it was a GOVERNMENT PLOY to get us to buy the vaccine! AAAaaaa!
It has prompted me to want to create an “information packet” like several have mentioned. But to be honest, I spent the whole weekend worried that now they “know” that I have preps (a mere month and a halfs worth for my own fam) and they will come to me!!! I live in a small community…basically everyone knows where everyone lives.
I feel torn. I want others to know and don’t even mind the ridicule, so much as the fear that I put my family at risk when it all comes down.
Oh my gosh…I apologize for the grammatical errors! (Maybe that is why the people looked at me like I was looney, rather then the subject matter!)
I read this the other day: http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2006/06/11.html#a1554
We want to make things compelling, easy and fun.
We want others to participate in making it compelling, easy and fun.
Can people upload pictures of their pantries to http://flickr.com/ and link to them from here? “This is what my (undisclosed location) preps look like. So many people, so much time, such and such ethnicity.”
This would really help us here, and also get some exposure on flickr itself, and elsewhere. You may want to add a “fluwikie.com” text in your photos. ;)
Average Concerned Mom - great ideas. Showing how we need to look at the everyday picture … and get past it in practical ways. Thank you!
okcinder - now it looks like you are in a position which almost forces you to get others prepping, no? Sorry about you, but maybe better in the longer term? :-/
Here’s something Ive been wondering- Concerned Mom suggested a prepacked box with three days supplies in them-which I think is a fab idea. On the ABC bird flu movie at one point the teen age girl gets a carton of supplies from some sort of relief agency-FEMA? And the guy tells her-“You’ve got to make this last the rest of the week” I’ve have been wondering-“What’s in the box?” I know that was just a movie, but Ive been wondering if maybe some relief agencys have some pre-packaged stuff in boxes, maybe we could pull ideas from that?
I like the civic duty angle too. Kind of like Victory Gardens and scrap metal drives of World War two. We could call them “Prepardness gardens” and maybe have pantry drives.
This is a great thread.
Average, very creative! I like the idea of avoiding the fear.
We may need a positive network. A coalition of positive networks. Which networks?
The Wall Street Journal today has an article about backpacks that food banks are filling for the weekend’s food for low income kids. Included were pull-tab cans of beans & franks, beans & rice, and fruit, a carton of milk that didn’t require refrigeration, peanut butter crackers, etc. If the food banks are networked, they might be the place to go for designing food boxes for panflu food distribution (if common food items are used instead of Okieman’s protein mix).
It would be a help if WalMart or Albertsons or the like would bundle a 3-day supply of food and sell it but they would me more likely to sell such if it came from a distributor that way. There used to be a company, (Ark Enterprises?) in SoCal that sold a box of supplies for earthquake preparedness, included canned water and some food bars. Not sure if they are still around or if their materials are even worth it.
If there is a profit to be had, they will sell it, if it is thought to me a non-salable item, the public would be on their own.
Forgive me for not remembering who it was, but I remember awhile back someone who works in a small grocery store planning on a drop off list/pick up supplies system…keeps the food distributing without the human contact. It seems like that could work so well, in smaller communities at least. Especially if the “3-day packets” were being produced (rather through large companies, like Kraft or just within the store)---info could be distributed beforehand by the stores (flyers, newspapers, etc.) that this is what would be available when it gets to that point.
Also, our community has a ministerial alliance that has an ongoing food pantry to help out those in need, maybe the “faith-based institutions” will need to get involved.
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Yesterday I was driving down the street (Las Vegas) and say a big printed sign by the side of the road that said, “Disaster Preparedness Expo Today Only.” Well, natuarally, I stopped! Turned out it was an LDS temple next to a fire station, and they had banded together to do a small demonstration room in the temple. They had flyers with suggestions about 3 day emergency supplies, proper containers for water storage, how to bake bread, etc. Very limited, simple demos that most people could wrap their heads around. Also, some very brief LDS materials about 1 year preps and a list of web links including providentliving.com (the LDS food storage info site).
I was so grateful to them that they took the time and effort to do this for the community. Good for them! This is something schools, churches, boy scouts, etc could put on in a limited neighborhood-by neighborhood way and at least get people to start thinking about this stuff. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. ;)
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One thing that would have to be a “must include” in these packs or buckets of supplies would be directions on how to cook the rice and beans. Unless the plan is to have quick-cook rice and canned pork and beans in the bucket, I know the vast majority of Americans would have no idea how to properly prepare and cook either of these items.
We live in a town… those that can afford it either eat out or have pre-packaged meals (Schwans) 4–6 nights a week, the other nights are “left-overs” warmed up in the microwave. The ones that utilize the food pantry and food stamps are in the same boat and have no idea what to do with food that needs preparation, much beyond a simple warm up in the microwave or fried in the pan.
The local food pantry sent out a list of foods to the churches of items to no longer donate; rice and beans were on the top of the list because no one was taking them. (Minute rice, especially flavored/seasoned, and various “canned” beans were still ok to give though)
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“It needs to be kept in a box so you don’t see it. Out of sight out of mind!” Maybe when you are first starting out, or supplies that can’t go bad. However, rotation is the only way to go in the long run. Rotation of stuff you normally use. That means a shelving or other storage system where you can quickly eyeball where you stand. You might be caught short in one area, but should have enough other stuff to make up for it.
However, some excellent ideas here.
Thanks, Calico! I had forgotten about this thread.
And yes, my suggestion to keep things in a box was just for starting out. Not for advanced preppers/pantry users. Just to change the mentality of not going shopping until the household is out of food! Even after just about 3 months of pantry shopping, I have stopped needing to use the boxes. WSell, I use them to help resupply. I buy more food, put it IN the boxes, and put the food it is OK now to use on the shelves. This is helping me work up to about a 6 week supply of many foods.
Start simple: just stock up on breakfast. Then go for the more difficult meals.
Also, it looks like we need to have a “how to” with what to buy, how to store it and how to cook it. With photos of how much room, etc. This would be a helpful project.
(Just like there’s this page to bundle together “simple masks” and “how to cough”. Some things go better together.)
Just a note on rice and beans. A lot of people are living in precarious circumstances, and often don’t have enough to eat or any way to cook it. (see book “Nickeled and Dimed” where the lady found housing in a motel without a cooking pot, with no where to cook or refrigerate things.)
Really, think of people’s different circumstances when you demonstrate what to put in a week long survival box.
When putting together a ‘box’ of food for the seriously poor and hungry, if you are really going to help, you need to put in individually wrapped portions, like breakfast bars, fruit cups, boxed milk, and cereal that doesn’t need heating. Canned is great (just no number 10 size cans, and include an opener. Much more expensive(!) than the bag of rice and dry beans and oatmeal you can cook at your home. Nut butter and crackers are a hit,dried fruit(raisin boxes) and so on. MRE’s.
It might make more sense for some provision to be made by the food pantries and churck basements to have ‘disaster boxes’ stored and ready to give out in the event of a disaster for those who have no place to put them.
I can take $100 and purchase sufficient food for a family of four for two weeks. But, the recipient needs to know how to prepare/cook the most of the food. It is very difficult to assist families through an extended period of time if all they know how to do is use a can opener. If it really becomes pandemic time, individuals like this are going to have to make a quick study of some basic skills. If they are homeless, certainly they would need a different type of food. I wonder if food pantries are prepping in any meaningful way. Usually, they stay just ahead of demand. I live in an area where there are numbers of poor people. My husband and I were at Save A Lot this AM. We noticed several women who were shopping and adding as they went. There is no hope for individuals on limited income to prep unless they do choose foods which can be prepared. It is very frightening to think of the thousands of people out there who do not have money, in normal times, to see them through to the end of the month. This is the thing which keeps me awake nights; that and images of Katrina victims on roof tops with signs reading: Help. Not very much help is going to be available during a pandemic.
heddiecalifornia - Good points! I see a lot of individually packaged items like you mentioned advertised by a local grocery chain for hurricane preps here in east Texas. These ads take into account people may not have the means to cook actual meals.
This is the first time I saw this thread. I think the key to large-scale prep encouragement is prepping for any disaster that might affect your area needs to become a way of living in our society. It needs to be taught to our kids in the schools, especially jr high and high schools as part of the ciriculum. There are ways to work it into classes where such information would be appropriate and not be alarming at any grade level.
How about a starter prep kits for newlyweds? That would be a great gift to give a young couple, especially if they live in an area affected by hurricanes, tornados or earthquakes. Even just giving them items like a first aid kit, flashlights, candles, matches and other basic items any household needs along with a book about prepping or food storage in a 5 gallon bucket is a good place to start. It may not be romantic or fancy but when they are faced with disaster they will remember you cared. If you think they may not be open to emergency preparedness then get them barbeque supplies, camping supplies, an assortment of candles or a couple of oil lamps, or other items that could be useful in emergencies but would not come across necessarily as prep items.
The same could be done for kids going away to college or moving out on their own for the first time.
I bet if we tried we could come up with a good list of items that would more than fill that 5 gallon bucket.
heddiecalifornia - Good points! I see a lot of individually packaged items like you mentioned advertised by a local grocery chain for hurricane preps here in east Texas. These ads take into account people may not have the means to cook actual meals.
This is the first time I saw this thread. I think the key to large-scale prep encouragement is prepping for any disaster that might affect your area needs to become a way of living in our society. It needs to be taught to our kids in the schools, especially jr high and high schools as part of the ciriculum. There are ways to work it into classes where such information would be appropriate and not be alarming at any grade level.
How about a starter prep kits for newlyweds? That would be a great gift to give a young couple, especially if they live in an area affected by hurricanes, tornados or earthquakes. Even just giving them items like a first aid kit, flashlights, candles, matches and other basic items any household needs along with a book about prepping or food storage in a 5 gallon bucket is a good place to start. It may not be romantic or fancy but when they are faced with disaster they will remember you cared. If you think they may not be open to emergency preparedness then get them barbeque supplies, camping supplies, an assortment of candles or a couple of oil lamps, or other items that could be useful in emergencies but would not come across necessarily as prep items.
The same could be done for kids going away to college or moving out on their own for the first time.
I bet if we tried we could come up with a good list of items that would more than fill that 5 gallon bucket.
Poppy — you are right — some people will need help with the supplies more than just the food.
In my mind the most important supplies would be (for those who have electric stoves or no stoves) a simple, one-burner, pretty foolproff propare stove, a pot to boil water, and a pan to fry tortillas or other flat breads.
Then you can get buy for a while with the cheapest of prep items — rice, canned beans, bags of grains (flour, oatmeal and corn meal) and cooking oil.
The $30 or so for a propane stove, the $10 or so for some pots, might be the hardest part of this preparation for the poorest among us.If you have nothing to eat this week, you could not find the $50 (or whatever) to spend on something you may never have to uese.
But once you have these items, you could get by for a lot longer on a lot less if there were an extended emergency situation. 6 weeks (or more!) of canned goods in small portions is VERY expensive.
i LOVE the idea of emergency supply items for newlyweds! I would have been the kind of bride who throught that was very romantic! (-:
ACM - That’s it exactly! Propane stoves are not all that expensive unless you just do not have extra to spend. Sometimes they can be had at garage sales but not often. We are fortunate to have one and several bottles of propane, plus a backpacking stove. We are a scouting family so camping equipment has nearly always been around but lots of families do not camp so do not think there might eve be a time they would need such things like camp stoves, sleeping bags and tents. Just those basics will run over $100 for two people. There are loads of things one could get to give to friends or family that would help them prep without buying food. Water & food storage containers, battery operated lamps, candles, tools, first aid kits, masks, gloves.
I saw a weather radio at WalMart today for under $20.
Backpacks for those who live in places where they might have to evacuate are a good gift. They could be filled with Toiletries kits, some clothing basics, and other items they might need during evacuation.
One way people could encourage others to prep is to gather together prep items from garage sales and such, extra items from their garages and have a prepping swap meet at their church, school or club meeting. With information provided about prepping. Those who can afford to do so might even donate new items. This could be a good way to help less fortunate families within the group without embarrassment.
I am not sure where to put this or even if I should but I found it interesting They now have insurance for BF. The thing I see in it is that companies are beginning to think about it on a “large scale”. This was in some insurance newsletter. A smart math person might be able to back figure to know what they think the risk level is.
Markel’s ‘Contagion Cover’ a Success “Markel Corporation launched what it termed a “new and unique insurance product: Outbreak(SM) Extra Expense Coverage,” in mid-July. The policy is specifically designed to protect companies from a closure of their business premises due to a variety of contagions, including Avian Flu. “
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