SALARYGAP Partners Discusses How the Rise in Extreme Weather May Put Livelihoods at Risk
It isn’t enough to survive high winds, tidal surges, and power outages from a natural disaster like Superstorm Sandy. Who pays the bills if a job is disrupted or destroyed?
September 07, 2016 07:35 AM Eastern Daylight Time
CHICAGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–SALARYGAP® Partners LLC. has announced SALARYGAP® Wage ProtectorTM, an insurance solution that can help people pay their bills if they lose their job through no fault of their own or experience a decrease in income due to reemployment at a lower salary. This coverage arrives at a time when extreme weather is on the rise, causing destruction to places where people live and work; potentially leaving job loss and/or salary reduction in its wake.
A 300% Increase in Natural Disasters2
In the case of Superstorm Sandy, New Jersey workers alone lost $1.4 billion in wages.1 While Superstorm Sandy was the second costliest hurricane since 1900, it certainly is not an isolated event. Recently, reports of massive flooding in Louisiana (2016) and Texas in (2016), devastating tornadoes hitting Kokomo Indiana (2016), and Joplin, Missouri (2011), Tuscaloosa-Birmingham, Alabama (2011), and Moore, Oklahoma (2013), have increased awareness of the economic impacts of natural disasters.
The first decade of the 21st century has seen a 300% rise in natural disasters compared to the 1980s.2 As a result, the amount of economic damage due to these natural disasters has seen a dramatic upturn.
Many Businesses Never Reopen after a Disaster
Forty percent of businesses do not reopen after a disaster and another 25% fail within one year according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The United States Small Business Administration has found that over 90% of businesses fail within two years after being struck by a disaster.
While a hurricane or a tornado can destroy whole communities in seconds, it may take many months for people to re-enter the workforce. In the meantime, people need to pay their bills. Consider that:
- Sixty-five percent of working Americans could not cover normal living expenses even for one year if their employment income was lost.3
- Thirty-eight percent could not pay their bills for more than three months.4
Those able to land a new job may have to take a stiff reduction in salary. Workers with more than 20 years of experience in a prior job earn 20% less in their new jobs. 5
New Insurance Solution
“Our coverage is designed to help fill a salary gap if a person is reemployed at a lower earning rate, after becoming involuntarily unemployed,” says Bill Jolicoeur, a 40-year veteran of the insurance industry and a co-founder of SALARYGAP® Partners LLC.
“Even in the best scenario following a job loss, it could take months to find another similarly paying job,” adds co-founder Bill Graham. “In the meantime, an insured person can use monthly cash benefits from this coverage to help pay any bill or loan and minimize dependence on their savings.”
SALARYGAP® Partners LLC is a North Carolina-based product development company serving the insurance, financial institution, association, and employer marketplace in the United States and Canada.
For more information, please contact SALARYGAP® Partners LLC’s President, Bill Jolicoeur via email atBill.Jolicoeur@salarygappartners.com. Consumers can get a free quote for SALARYGAP® Wage ProtectorTM in minutes at:www.salarygap.com.
FOOTNOTES
1 Stephanie Hoopes-Halpin, The Impact of Superstorm Sandy on New Jersey Towns and Households (Newark: Rutgers School of Public Affairs and Administration), 58,https://njdatabank.newark.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/files/RutgersSandyImpact-FINAL-2013_10_28.pdf (accessed June 11, 2016).
2 Jennifer Leaning and Debarati Guha-Sapir, “Natural Disasters, Armed Conflict, and Public Health,” The New England Journal of Medicine, 369 (2013): 1836, http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1109877 (accessed June 11, 2016).
3 CDA 2010 Consumer Disability Awareness Study (Council for Disability Awareness), 8, http://www.disabled-world.com/pdf/cda-2010-consumer-disability-awareness-survey.pdf (accessed June 11, 2016).
4 CDA 2010 Consumer Disability Awareness Study, 3.
5 “Fact Sheet: Improving Economic Security by Strengthening and Modernizing the Unemployment Insurance System,”
January 16, 2016, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/01/16/fact-sheet-improving-economic-security-strengthening-and-modernizing (accessed June 11, 2016).
Contacts
SALARYGAP Partners, LLC
Bill Jolicoeur, 608-219-7886
President
Bill.jolicoeur@salarygappartners.com
www.salarygappartners.com