05.19.14
Risk management programs often address more common and expected perils such as workers compensation, fleet auto, product liability, premises slip and falls and fire insurance coverage. Amidst these more garden-variety risks, management teams easily can overlook the need for risk management plans pertaining to threats posed by animal activists and related groups.
Nevertheless, to fix that common blind spot, here are seven risk management tips and strategies:
No one suggests that animal activism risks are at the top of the list of perils that medical device companies should address. Nevertheless, proactive management teams should pause to consider their company’s vulnerability to the acts of animal activists and to devise ways to address potential loss.
If the core value of animal activists is empathy for other animals, such groups might consider the compassionate treatment of human animals, including those who make life-saving and life-sustaining medical products.
Nevertheless, to fix that common blind spot, here are seven risk management tips and strategies:
- Beef up your IT. Tune up your corporate security program. Make scenario-planning de rigueur. For example, what will be the company’s response if an animal rights group protests outside the corporate entrance or gate? What is the response if one or more persons from that group breach perimeter security?
- Train employees on responding to such events, such as procedures for exiting an area rapidly.
- Reassess “standard” security procedures and customize them for threat scenarios.
- Conduct periodic simulations to ensure employees are conversant with appropriate responses. Dust off the company’s crisis management plan to see if it addresses scenarios where a crisis erupts due to the actions of animal activists.
- Monitor activities of these groups. Keep an inventory of such organizations. Regularly monitor their websites, which may yield clues about upcoming activities and targets.
- Prepare a cogent media strategy. This can be an ongoing effort, not a one-shot gesture. The strategy should set the record straight about the company’s use of animals in medical development, its steps for humane treatment and the benefits of developing life-saving and life-enriching products and therapies. Medical technology firms cannot afford to ignore the issue, despite the existence of many more pressing problems. The battle for public opinion wages not just in the marketplace and in courtrooms, but also in the media. Companies must dispel any image that they mistreat animals and reinforce the message that using animals in clinical trials serves a greater good of developing therapies that save lives and enhance the quality of life.
- Use insurance to help cushion financial aftershocks of animal activism. Companies can address the threat of damage to real property through property insurance coverage. Check your current insurance policy to see if vandalism is a covered peril. Partner with your insurance agent or broker to discuss this feature and the risk. Also, determine whether the firm has business interruption coverage and if coverage applies even if there has been no physical damage to the insured’s property.
No one suggests that animal activism risks are at the top of the list of perils that medical device companies should address. Nevertheless, proactive management teams should pause to consider their company’s vulnerability to the acts of animal activists and to devise ways to address potential loss.
If the core value of animal activists is empathy for other animals, such groups might consider the compassionate treatment of human animals, including those who make life-saving and life-sustaining medical products.