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70 Societies found that climate disasters have been increasing for the past half century and have grown 35% since the 1990s. We also know that with each new disaster, federal agencies will advise homeowners to reach out to their servicers for relief options—which will inevitably change as well. Over the past year and a half, the ability of servicers to handle disaster relief options was made more complex by the pandemic, which continues to impact millions of Americans. While forbearance and eviction moratoriums have kept borrowers in their homes, these options are now expiring, which will surely lead to an increase in permanent loan modification relief, bankruptcies, and foreclosures down the line. is is yet another disruption servicers must grapple with in the months and years ahead. Further unknowns include the impacts of recent and future regulations, as well as the level of scrutiny with which federal regulators will place upon servicers. We already know that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is focusing on servicers' operations this year to ensure borrowers are treated fairly. However, servicers will also have to deal with two new CFPB rules that dictate when and how they must work with borrowers when collecting payments. ese rules involve bans on harassment, abuse, and misrepresentations as well as the collection of time-barred debt, which is mostly unregulated at the state level. ese business-rule changes and additional metrics require servicers to recalibrate, which creates additional disruption. Besides being downright spooky, these collective unknowns will make managing borrower interactions infinitely more difficult for servicers. At the very least, complying with the CFPB's new rules while dealing with record origination volumes, the likelihood of a spike in defaults and foreclosures, and bracing for future disasters will make the complexities of servicing more challenging than ever. KEYS TO OVERCOMING FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN What's important to remember is that while all challenges are unique, mortgage servicers must always be prepared for the unknown. e good news is that we have learned plenty of lessons in recent years about what business strategies work best when the market is continuously dictated by uncertainty. e most valuable lesson we've learned is that uncertainty demands a digital-first approach. "Digital first" involves responding to new opportunities or challenges with the assumption that the solution can and should be digital in nature rather than addressed through traditional processes, which tend to be manual, time-consuming, and prone to error. For servicers, this means having access to technology that is capable of ingesting and synchronizing constantly evolving data through one's operations. It also means leveraging automated workflows to reduce or eliminate unnecessary labor as well as the use of spreadsheets, queries, workarounds, and one-off software, which increase the chances of mistakes being made and introduce additional risk. Because reducing costs is the goal of every servicer, it's important to proactively plan for safety by implementing flexible, automated, connected workflows before the next major event strikes, not afterward. is need became increasingly evident with each passing disaster, when it became very clear which servicers had embraced automated workflow technology and which ones had not. Unfortunately, most current servicing technologies only automate a few types of tracking non-smart workflows and lack the type of flexibility and capability servicers need to adjust to evolving conditions. Proper smart workflow technology should include all possible types of workflows, connect them no matter the type of process, and enable new ones to be rapidly created as circumstances change, such as when the federal government announces new homeowner relief options. ey should also help servicers gain greater visibility across their entire organization and help determine the appropriate options for each borrower, so when chaos strikes, they can respond quickly and effectively with minimal effort, and their actions become completely auditable. is last point is incredibly important. When a borrower has just lost their job, or their house is literally underwater following a hurricane, they don't have time to wait for their servicer to manually check for the best Feature By: Jane Mason Proper smart workflow technology should include all possible types of workflows, connect them no matter the type of process, and enable new ones to be rapidly created as circumstances change.