BOSTON, December 20—There’s nothing like a major catastrophe to induce people to check their insurance policies, and in the wake of September 11 many more corporations are looking into crisis planning, according to Clarke & Company’s crisis communications center director Jennifer Sheehy, who says the center has seen a more than 200 percent increase in monthly revenues since the terrorist attacks.
 
“While we have seen an increase in crisis response business, the majority of business is in developing crisis plans and conducting regularly scheduled crisis drills,” says Sheehy. “We are also seeing a very significant increase in requests for crisis planning and training seminars. Prior to September, we were averaging about one call a week. Now, even approaching the holidays, we are fielding two or three calls a day.”
 
The most active sectors include energy, food and infrastructure sectors.
 
According to Clarke president Brian Delaney, “The recent terrorist attacks and the ripple effect that those events are having on a number of industry sectors worldwide has moved crisis planning and crisis drills to much higher priority on the ‘must do’ list for corporate executives. While crisis planning has become more important in recent years, the economic and business impact of the events of September 11 has been a wakeup call to business leaders to get comprehensive and usable crisis plans in place.”