INTERVIEW WITH SETH STEIN, AUTHOR OF DISASTER DEFERRED: HOW NEW SCIENCE IS CHANGING OUR VIEW OF EARTHQUAKE HAZARDS IN THE MIDWEST

The following is an interview with Seth Stein, author of Disaster Deferred: How New Science is Changing Our View of Earthquake Hazards in the Midwest.

Q: What’s wrong with the stories we hear about the 1811 and 1812 New Madrid earthquakes?

Seth Stein: A lot of what you hear is hype. For example, you hear that these were the biggest earthquakes that ever hit the U.S. In fact there are about 15 earthquakes of the same magnitude somewhere in the world every year. Similarly, the story that they rang church bells in Boston isn’t true. Actually, there’s no record that anyone in Boston felt them. There’s also the story that the Indian chief Tecumseh predicted them. Actually, after the earthquakes he told his followers that they proved that the Great Spirit was on the Indians’ side.

Q: The government says that earthquakes will again happen in the Midwest and cause a huge natural disaster unless we start preparing now. Why do you disagree?

S.S.: Twenty years ago every geologist thought that. We knew there had been big earthquakes in 1811 and 1812, and geological studies showed that there had been earthquakes in about 1450 and 900 AD. So it looked like earthquakes happen about every 500 years. We couldn’t test that idea until about 1990, when the Global Positioning System–GPS–came along. That let us put markers in the ground and measure the position of the Midwestern fault lines using a fancier version of the GPS systems used in cars and cell phones. Geologists started making measurements near faults all around the world where there was a history of earthquakes. They discovered you could measure the ground moving as it stored up energy for a future earthquake. To our surprise, measurements at the New Madrid earthquake zone showed that the ground wasn’t moving. We concluded there is no sign that a big Midwestern earthquake is on the way.

Q: Don’t the small earthquakes happening in the Midwest today prove that a huge one is coming? S.S.: Our results show that most of those small earthquakes are aftershocks of the big earthquakes from 200 years ago. It makes sense because they happen on the faults we think moved 200 years ago.

Q: How can it be that the New Madrid fault is no longer active?

S.S.: The idea that faults can turn on and off seems surprising, but it’s catching on quickly for a couple of reasons.

First, it explains a lot of the puzzles about New Madrid. We know that the faults at New Madrid are hundreds of millions of years old, but throughout their history they haven’t moved most of the time. If faults move a lot they make topography like mountains, and the Midwest is some of the flattest land in the country. It didn’t square with what we see.

Second, once geologists started looking, we realized that faults within other continents–China, Europe, and Australia–also switch on and off.

Q: Knowing this, how can the government claim that the Midwest is in as much earthquake danger as California?

S.S.: That conclusion made sense with what we knew 20 years ago, but we know so much more now. Now it looks like the danger of earthquakes in the Midwest is about 1/10th that of California’s. Of course, we’ll keep studying the area, but from what we know there is no point rushing into expensive California-level preparations. More modest preparations would cost less and let resources be used other ways that do more good.

Q: Even if the risk is much less than the government says, doesn’t it make sense to prepare

S.S.: Remember President Reagan’s line that the scariest phrase in the English language is “we’re from the government and we’re here to help.” The problem is that the preparations the government wants communities and business to take are very expensive. Bringing one hospital in Memphis up to California standards cost about 100 million dollars. Bringing all the buildings in the area up to this standard would take billions of dollars. Spending that money on other social needs would do a lot more good. Similarly, requiring businesses to spend money this way is a huge tax with little benefit. It’s likely that many buildings in California will be seriously shaken by an earthquake during their lives, while a building in the Midwest is very unlikely to be.

Q: So, what’s your overall advice about Midwest earthquakes?

S.S.: We should keep learning more about them, but don’t need to rush into expensive precautions. The government is pushing communities to spend money that can be better utilized elsewhere for greater social good. As the old joke goes, “do you want it right or do you want it now?”

 

YOUR Missouri Agent’s Association….

Press Release

6/12/2010

Meramec Valley Mutual Insurance Company is excited to announce that we are a major sponsor at the Missouri Association of Insurance Agents’ Leadership Conference, July 21-23, at The Lodge of Four Seasons, Lake Ozark, Mo.

We will also be exhibiting at the trade show on both Wednesday and Thursday. Meramec Valley Mutual will join in the company prize drawings at the close of the trade show. We hope that as an appointed Meramec Valley Mutual agent, you too will attend this conference to visit with our representatives and possibly learn even more about our products and services.

Remember, if you register soon you will receive “early-bird pricing” (through Monday, June 21). Registration for the Leadership Conference is available on the MAIA website, www.missouriagent.org. We look forward to seeing you at the Lake in July!

Identity Restoration Coverage . . .

Study: Most Identity Theft Happens Offline

NOTE: All Meramec Valley Mutual customers that have liability protection in their policies (excluding GL-600 Premises Only) have $15,000 Identity Restoration coverage….

Don’t forget to let your client know about this important protection.

Media junkies obsessed with Internet-enabled identity theft might want to focus on a more humble culprit: paper.

Even as news reports relentlessly drive home the threats posed by phishing, spyware, viruses, and computer break-ins, a new government-sponsored study says you’re much more likely to have your identity stolen offline.

According to the new research — authored by James Van Dyke, principal analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research — fully 72 percent of the personal information used in identity fraud scams last year was stolen from offline sources. In only 12 percent of cases was fraud victims’ identity and financial information stolen online.

What’s more, according to the new findings, those who monitor their financial accounts and transactions online lose significantly less per fraud incident than those who rely on printed paper statements. Customers who used the Internet to check their bank and credit card accounts had an average loss of $551 per incident, the survey showed. Those who waited for paper statements to arrive averaged $4,543 in losses — more than eight times as high.

Friends, family members, and neighbors account for half of all known identity fraud, the survey showed. Furthermore, the cost inflicted by these familiar criminals left Internet scammers in the dust — an average of $15,607, versus $2,320 for their online counterparts.

Overall, identity theft cost Americans $52.6 billion last year, according to the study.

While these results don’t negate the very real danger of technology-based scams, they do make it clear that many criminals prefer simpler fraud schemes — from dumpster diving and mail theft to scanning a friend’s desk for sensitive documents or skimming data from a diner’s credit card.

The study was based on telephone interviews with 4,000 individuals, of whom 509 had been victims of identity fraud.

Insurance Industry News

NAMIC Takes Swift Action to Urge Congress to Oppose 24-Hour Insurance Coverage

There is currently a proposal under possible consideration for inclusion in the Senate Finance Committee’s health care reform legislation that would mandate 24-hour insurance coverage through employers. This type of around-the-clock insurance coverage is for both work-related and non-work-related health care. Thus, 24-hour coverage has been proposed as a type of health care system reform that integrates the health coverage and benefits currently offered by public and private insurance programs, state workers’ compensation systems, and the medical component of automobile insurance.

When NAMIC learned that this proposal was being considered, we contacted the senators on the Finance Committee to explain the issue and urge them to oppose this provision should it come up for a vote.

NAMIC and the property/casualty mutual insurance industry oppose the concept of 24-hour insurance coverage. Mutual insurance companies across the country are successfully and comprehensively providing workers compensation and automobile insurance coverage to millions of Americans.

The creation of a 24-hour insurance coverage program could drastically reduce premium dollars for those companies providing this coverage by eliminating these lines of insurance – and could reduce the protections provided their policyholders. Combining general health coverage, workers compensation coverage, and automobile coverage into a single product would reduce the number of carriers capable of providing these lines of insurance to their policyholders.

NAMIC is very concerned about the effect 24-hour coverage would have on the current effective operation of workers compensation and automobile insurance coverage. Such a plan would result in increased costs for mutual insurers and consumers, regulatory confusion, and a lack of effective insurance coverage like is currently available.

We will continue to work closely with the Senate to ensure that 24-hour coverage does not remain a part of the health care debate as it continues.