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70 said. "ey can read the local paper. But what they don't know is, physically, what is happening in these areas, down to an individual property level? What is happening at my property, as a servicer, as a bank?" Smith noted how critical updates on topics such as FEMA Declarations can be—or even alerts about disasters with the potential to become an official FEMA Declaration. "ose are extremely important to the clients," said Tim Rath, AVP of Business Development, "especially because we often have to sift through the FEMA website to navigate and find the correct information." Greenbaum added that a service provider, such as Safeguard, must not only provide critical information regarding disasters, but it also has to analyze that data to provide real context to its clients. "Are we identifying trends? Are there multiple houses on the same street?" Greenbaum asked. In Safeguard's case, they utilize a visual overlay to denote trends and levels of severity, with red representing the most damaged or impacted properties. Alan Jaffa, Safeguard's CEO, explained that in the instance of a disaster—as we spoke, he pointed out that Collier County, Florida, was at that moment fighting a series of dangerous wildfires—the company will automatically alert their clients about any parts of their portfolios that could be affected by the situation. "Whether you're a client or not a client, we'll put you in the database and keep you informed," Greenbaum said. "But [for clients] we try to be very, very custom. You're going to get back specific, detailed information from a dedicated report, and then we're going to provide photos so they can see the extent of the damage." Jaffa said the goal is to be providing the servicer or investor with updates before they even realize they need them. "We are constantly grabbing that information for the industry," Jaffa added. Safeguard's CIO, George Mehok, discussed how the company's use of geocoding and GPS-enabling each property in a customer's portfolio allows them to drill down into extremely small levels of detail that can provide crucial insights before, during, and after a crisis. "When there's a fire, for example, we can determine which properties are potentially impacted, because we also bring in data from national sources and federal sources that we overlay. We can tell a client early on in a disaster how many properties in their delinquent portfolio are impacted, even before we dispatch the first inspector. en they can assess what the overall potential situation is." at information flow, however, is very much multidirectional. Some of the most important information a servicer needs may come not from a government agency, but rather from the "boots on the ground"—the contractor and vendor base. ey can provide the local-level nitty-gritty, such as details about road flooding, that may be important but not provided from other sources. "One big challenge is just staying organized," Greenbaum said. "We have to dig through the noise to get the right information, but we don't want to become a noisy source ourselves. We want the information we pass on to be clean." "is is one big reason why we love to work with local vendors. ey understand what's going on in their area, and they're more equipped at times to deal with cultural- type things that are happening in different communities. ey're there—they know the community; the people in the community know them. Code officers are familiar with them. at's why it's a huge advantage for us to work with our local vendors." e demographics of those impacted by natural disasters may shift in the years to come as well, as various factors hold the potential to reshape how and where Americans choose to live. If telecommuting becomes more common, will large urban centers see less demand than more affordable locales? "People live where the jobs are, but they are more aware of living in more 'risky' areas," Rushmore's Terry Smith said. "For example, folks look to move away from flood areas and even concentrated cities. Government assistance programs are encouraging this—look at Puerto Rico where aid is being given to "What is happening in these areas, down to an individual property level? What is happening at my property, as a servicer, as a bank?" —Michael Greenbaum, COO, Safeguard Properties Feature By: David Wharton

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