Chainsaws and client check-ins: Florida advisors weather hurricane

September 29, 2022 9:59 PM

As Hurricane Ian barreled toward southern Florida last Tuesday, Brad Tatar picked up his phone to check in on one his favorite clients. The 68-year-old woman had entrusted her money to Tatar for more than a decade, and he urged her to evacuate before the monster storm unleashed havoc and devastation.

The client said she wanted to ride things out in her Bradenton, Florida, mobile home. But on Thursday, she called Tatar, a senior vice president at GreenUp Wealth in Bradenton. Her cellphone still had a charge, but there was no power in her area. Tatar, who counted the women as a client when he was previously at Scottrade and TD Ameritrade, offered to let her stay with him, his wife and two children in a guest room in their two-story home about 30 minutes on the other side of town. The client hopped in her car for the soggy drive through tree-strewn streets.

"Brad has about 65 clients, and he has a very deep relationship with these folks," said Tatar's boss, Tony Schmitt, the president, CEO and founder of GreenUp, who recounted the episode. "And I can tell he treats everyone like his family."

Before Hurricane Ian was briefly downgraded to a tropical storm on Thursday, then upgraded back again, it left a path of destruction across southwestern Florida on Wednesday. It's now headed toward South Carolina, where it's expected to make landfall on Friday. But in the Sunshine State, many financial advisors and wealth managers enacted business continuity plans, called elderly or vulnerable clients and powered up their chainsaws to cut up fallen trees. Miami, which aims to be the "Wall Street of the South," escaped the brunt of the storm and its 150-mile-an-hour winds, but many other cities and towns in the southwest portion of the state — places rich with financial advisors and wealth managers — were leveled by one of the strongest hurricanes in U.S. history.

Goldman Sachs, which has offices in Tampa, West Palm Beach and Boca Raton, among other Florida cities, said Thursday that it "conducted proactive outreach in advance of the storm to employees in mandatory or voluntary evacuation zones and continues to remain in close contact with all affected employees." The bank is closely monitoring its offices across Florida and in the storm's projected track.

Sally Cates, a spokesperson for Dynasty Financial Services in St. Petersburg, said Thursday that "we use our emergency text messaging system internally. In addition, we ensure key members maintain internet and power. As a result, we have been able to support our network partners across the U.S. without any business disruption." Cates added that roughly 35% of firm employees live in vulnerable areas in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties and were evacuated to hotels and family members' homes.

Some advisors took a Zen approach.

"Hurricanes are temporary. Wu-Tang is forever," tweeted certified financial planner Chad Chubb, the founder of WealthKeel, in Tampa on Sept. 28, on the eve of the epic storm. Here's what others saw and did. Interviews have been condensed for length and clarity.

Brent Weiss, co-founder & chief evangelist, Facet Wealth in St. Petersburg, Florida

My girlfriend had her house destroyed in New York from Hurricane Sandy. So as soon as there was any mention of a tropical storm, we were preparing. My girlfriend thinks she's like a magnet for hurricanes.

I mean, I'm a financial planner, so I plan in advance. We started with our dog, because that's the most important thing, right? We had our emergency kit. We had our legal documents and a fire- and water-proof safe. We actually bought military-grade MREs [meals ready to eat] — gluten-free, just to keep it clean. We had solar charging things for the batteries for our cellphones. Estate planning documents. Even though we have everything electronically, we wanted to have cash and checks, so we put them in a fireproof and waterproof bag. We were ready to rock and roll. Ninety percent of people here in Tampa-St. Pete are evacuated.

Our home is without power. We're at the Hyatt Regency in Orlando. It's right around Disney World. They changed their dog policy for the week, so there's dogs everywhere. They turned the conference center into a kids' room. They have cornhole for adults.

We sent a company-wide message to all of our clients in impacted areas. Each of our planners had a list of their clients to reach out to and make sure that they're OK. To say, 'hey, if you need us, call us. If you need to file a claim with your insurance company, we'll help.' We're remote anyway, so it's very easy for us to move around and be operational, no matter where we go.

One of our planners more than likely had his house destroyed here on Sanibel Island. The causeway going to his island is completely gone.

Annette VanderLinde, chief client officer, Liberty Wealth Advisors, Naples, Florida

Our team is nationally distributed, so we are able to serve clients during this crazy weather and catastrophic situations. We're not heavily impacted by one single geographical location.

At the start of the week, we did a proactive outreach to our clients in Florida, but then also in the Carolinas, to ask 'Hey, how are you doing? And how else can we support you?' We asked clients if we could support them on the financial front in advance of that storm making landfall.

We assured them that we can transact anything that they might need. We serve them all electronically and they're habituated to it. And we are set up to be able to move money for them on a moment's notice. So there was absolutely a lot of engagement with our clients in that area on Monday and Tuesday.

We did have one individual who's in the midst of working through closing on a property, and I wanted to just double check with her on her timeline as far as when she needs assets for closing and how it might be impacted.

Chris Horvath, managing director, Taiber Kosmala and Associates, Tampa, Florida

I live in Oldsmar [northwest of Tampa]. We got really lucky. We're cleaning up minor debris and not underwater, like some folks down south. So I'm really grateful.

For residents, and for family I have nearby, I'm helping clean up tree branches. I snapped up the chainsaw this afternoon to break stuff up into smaller pieces and clean up the yard.

We have remote team members all over the country, which is good for us in a situation like this, because we don't have to scramble. If one person is impacted, we're able to easily shift their duties to another team member who can cover during the time being out of pocket.