Result Driven Impact

Brand Protection

Backstory

Jake owns and operates a farm supply company in the Western U.S. and began an 831(b) Plan administered by SRA. Jake designed his plan to fit his business’s needs and to address the risks he was most concerned with including brand & reputation damage. Jake contributed to his 831(b) Plan for several years without incident and was able to accumulate his annual contributions in a managed investment account and utilize plan assets to provide operating loans to his business. In 2015, Jake’s brand was tarnished after a social media post went viral online.

  • INDUSTRY- Wholesaler
  • ANNUAL GROSS REVENUE- $20 Million

Brand Damage Risk

With the growth of social media business owners and their employees find themselves inadvertently being brand ambassadors for their business. Disgruntled customers can leave 1-star reviews online or record employees behaving poorly and associate that with the business. An accepted cancel culture creates another set of issues when owners and/or employees share opinions on their personal accounts. Jake’s business receives reviews online across many different sites including Facebook, Google & Yelp. Jake and his employees have personal social media accounts separate from the business’s online accounts.

Incident

In the fall of 2015 Jake made a politically charged post to his personal Facebook account. In the following days his post was shared millions of times and eventually landed Jake on national television. Jake quickly drew a massive backlash from the general public for his stated political views. Internet users were quick to discover that Jake was a small business owner and launched a campaign to leave 1-star reviews for his business. In a matter of days Jake’s business received thousands of 1-star reviews across multiple review sites. To stop the onslaught of poor reviews and begin the process of rehabilitating his brand, Jake engaged a PR firm at a significant cost to his business.

Resolution

Jake filed a claim for the brand damage to the direct writer of his 831(b) Plan. The direct writer began its claims adjusting process to first determine coverage. Upon review the direct writer determined that its brand protection policy provided coverage for loss of income and the additional PR firm expenses. Once coverage was determined the direct writer requested additional documentation from Jake in order to understand the extent of loss caused by the incident.

Upon reviewing profit and loss statements the direct writer determined there was not a loss of income resulting from the incident. The additional expenses incurred to hire the PR Firm determined Jake’s loss and a claim payment was made to his business for a portion of the policy limit. Following the claim payment Jake was able to recoup the costs incurred to rehabilitate his brand.

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