Is your Equity Admin Service provider ready for a disaster?

Hurricane Sandy once again reminds of of how big Mother Nature is.  At one point the storm covered more than 900 miles from north to south.

We seldom dig into our stock administration providers emergency contingency plans.  When you do make sure you look closely at things like

1. Where is the data back up located?  Given Sandy a safe location would need to be at least 1,000 miles away.  I have seen some providers who have their back-up data within 50 miles of their main data.
   


2. How will staff get access to that data?  Is there a skeleton back up crew near the back up site?  Will CSRs be able to work from somewhere?  Will your employees be able to perform transactions? I have seen some providers who have back up data at a proper distance, but no plans for how staff can get to it.

Take a look at the recent Bloomberg discussion.  Disasters happen.  You might want to reach out to your provider and find out how they will REALLY handle things.

What other questions should you be asking?