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» VISIT US ONLINE @ DSNEWS.COM 63 information should they need to reach out to us with any questions or concerns. Both the American Red Cross and Ready.gov offer cur- rent information and resources on what you can do before and after disaster strikes," she said. Fannie Mae, which had announced an expansion of the post-disaster resources it offered in November 2018, has also been at the forefront of developing such partnerships. Its Disaster Response Network is a comprehensive case-management service for disaster-affected homeowners whose mortgage loans are owned by the company. "It provides homeowners broader personalized support in addition to the mortgage payment relief we make available through our servicers," said Mike Hernandez, VP of Housing Access and Disaster Response and Rebuild at Fannie Mae. Additionally, he said that using a call-center model staffed exclusively by HUD-certified counselors within the United States, the Disaster Response network helps homeowners navigate the challenging and unfamiliar disaster recovery process. "Services offered include a recovery assessment and action plan, assistance filing claims (i.e. FEMA and SBA claims), help working with mortgage servicers for payment relief, access to online tools and resources, and ongoing status checks to help ensure a success- ful recovery," Hernandez said. ROAD TO RECOVERY Despite these advances in technology and streamlining disaster response, challenges remain for servicers—the biggest one being educating borrowers about their options in forbearance and loan modifications. "I still think there is work to be done around educating borrowers (and potential borrowers) about what assistance options are available following a disaster and who is eligible. In reality, the same assistance options are not available across the board," Price said, giving the example of payment deferrals, which had caused much confusion for borrowers after the storms last year because of inaccurate information. "To be clear, payment deferrals are an option whereby the missed principal and interest payments are added to the end of the current loan term. Borrowers should know that payment deferrals are not available across all investors so it's important to check with your lender (whoever that may be), first, to determine eligibility," she explained. "Names of some of the larger investors who borrowers may be familiar with include Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, and VA." Options such as loan modifications from offered forbearance plans are an area that borrowers need better education on, according to Hughes. "Servicers should educate their customers as early on as possible on the impact of the various solutions available to resolve a delinquency resulting from an offered forbearance plan," he said. "Many borrowers indicate had they known a modification might mean a higher interest rate or a significantly extended term (e.g., 40-years), they would have found other means of making their monthly payments or resumed their monthly payments more quickly and resolved the smaller resulting past due amount on their own." Hughes added, "ough most servicers apply credit protections (i.e., negative credit suppressions, blocks, etc.), the credit repositories could still lower the borrower's credit score. e dilemma is in understanding that disasters are acts of God, but so are other reasons for delinquency such as death and illness, which are not afforded equivalent credit protections. is is a matter requiring further thought and discussion by the industry." Manpower and the cost to obtain it also plays key roles in rebuilding after a disaster. "In most instances the amount of required work and effort to rebuild far exceeds the available qualified workforce," Lysikowski said. "e importance of knowing and understanding the available in state resources and out of state resources willing to participate in the recover, cannot be understated." From the servicer's perspective, the industry must look at alleviating challenges such as "over burdensome documentation requirements, rate increases at modification when the loan has an ARM teaser rate and addressing the expectations from the homeowners that the payments should be waived," O'Connell said. Finally, though, the best way a servicer can look to prepare for a disaster is looking back and evaluating their processes during the previous disaster to help them strengthen the things that went right and rework on the elements that didn't. "inking about these types of questions ahead of the hurricane season and taking action on the opportunities will allow response activities to be efficient and prevent a lot of rework in retraining and re-decisioning," Williamson said. "Overall, clear communication and clear expectations from all representatives of your company will reduce stress in an inherently chaotic situation, although the type of disaster dictates how the communication occurs." —Elizabeth Wright Billings, Pricing and Execution Manager, Churchill Mortgage

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