Mark Hanna
Manager, Public Relations
Insurance Council of Texas

1. Every state has bad weather. It's easy to join hands with the Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS), the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH) and your local state insurance department to use their expertise to promote safety programs. All three groups were involved to some degree in our commemorating the five-year anniversary of the tornado that struck downtown Fort Worth and the 10-year anniversary of the costliest hailstorm on record that struck the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The same groups provided video and expert resources when the Insurance Council of Texas (ICT) approached television stations in Corpus Christi and Harlingen to produce a weeklong series of reports on hurricane preparation. Stations in both cities aired everything we offered.

2. Our video entitled, Auto Insurance 101, is aimed at educating teen drivers about auto insurance in Texas. The video can easily be converted for use by other states. ICT would be glad to e-mail the script, suggested video, producer notes and any other information needed to produce your own 18-minute video for teenagers in your state. In Texas, we worked hand in hand with the Texas Education Agency so they would approve the video and put it to use in the state's 1,000 high schools. The video has also been offered to all of our members and been requested by more than 100 independent insurance agents, driver's education and defensive driving programs. The Georgia Insurance Information Service has taken us up on the offer and is in the process of producing their version.

3. ICT was approached by the Austin Police Department on a program that would alert motorists to Lock their cars, Take their keys and Hide their possessions. It wasn't until ICT offered to fund the first 100 signs that area businesses saw the value of the message that had been posted and asked for more. The police department wound up installing 1,000 signs in shopping malls, parking lots and apartment complexes all over Austin. I've included one of the signs for your viewing pleasure.