Flying into Santiago SCL International airport, I was looking out the airplane window scanning for signs of any earthquake damage. Nothing was visible from the air. It was more of the same when we landed as I still didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. I was surprised because I knew the airport had been closed for a few days after the earthquake due to damage. While driving from the airport to our hotel in the city – everything appeared normal.
In fact the city of Santiago did suffer earthquake damage, but two months later you had to look quite closely, and mostly at some of the older buildings, to find any signs of damage or deterioration. Of course the earthquake epicenter was located off the coast of Concepcion, Chile which is 433 km southwest of Santiago. So it is business as usual in the city of Santiago.
In the RSA Chile office the teams are split into two primary groups for larger and smaller sized claims. We have several people from RSA U.K. one from Argentina, one from Sweden and one from Peru. We are also working with a UK consulting firm that specializes in CAT claims. We have three full-time translators and three part-time translators. There are also several other clerical people working on updating the systems. Everyone seems to work well together and there is always a lot of ongoing discussion. This makes for a lot of background noise and you learn to tune it out! This all is happening in a room the size of a large boardroom. All of this activity is happening in addition to the Chilean claims team’s regular daily tasks.
Outside the office, the leaves are falling faster every day as Chile moves through their fall season into winter. No-one promised us a tropical vacation! Work days are long, but most office workers leave early on Friday afternoon at 4:00 P.M. We keep busy on the weekends and some of that has already been covered earlier by my Amigos from Canada. Bye for now.
Mike Stewart
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