Veena Krishna stepped up when Fort McMurray needed her.

The average day for Veena Krishna looks much like many of ours. She gets up, gets ready for work and makes her way to the office. But on certain occasions, Krishna is called upon, at a moment’s notice, to help people regain control of their lives in times of dire need.

As a TD Insurance Catastrophe Claims Advisor, she’s seen first-hand the way natural disasters can be devastating to individuals, their families and entire communities.

It’s catastrophes like the Fort McMurray wildfires in May of 2016 that have had the most impact on Krishna, while allowing her to have the most significant impact on others’ lives.

“That very moment when a customer asks for assistance, you can only imagine what they are going through,” she says. “Your job is to support that individual and their loved ones any way you can.”

On the night the fires first began to rage, Fort McMurray was thrown into a frenzy. Knowing exactly what this could mean for the Northern Alberta city, Krishna stayed calm but moved as swiftly as the residents. She took to the road immediately as part of the TD Insurance Mobile Response Unit, lending a hand to those in need of assistance in any way she could.

“You get into this mode of helping people because you want to do what’s right,” Krishna says.

For the next two weeks, that mobile unit became her home away from home as she and other TD Insurance employees aided some of the 80,000 residents that were forced to evacuate and left homeless.

“A lot of houses were completely destroyed and, for the homes that were somewhat salvaged, people weren’t allowed to go back right away.”

For Krishna, this also meant being able to communicate with people on a more personal level, not just a professional one.

“Many customers would walk in visibly upset — some would break down and cry. It was that face-to-face interaction, though, that I believed helped make the process a bit easier.”

Ultimately, this is the goal of Krishna and others in her office: to listen, to understand, to help those in need and to treat them as her own neighbours and friends. Because in the devastating aftermath of catastrophes, like the Fort McMurray wildfires, some are left with nothing but the people around them and a future to rebuild. For Veena Krishna, it’s about understanding how important it is for people affected by disaster to not only have someone there to file their insurance claims, but to also have someone there who cares.

The opinions shared above reflect the genuine, freely given perspective of Ms. Veena Krishna regarding her role as a TD Insurance Catastrophe Claims Advisor responding to the needs of TD Insurance customers during the Fort McMurray wildfires of 2016. Ms. Krishna was employed by TD Insurance at the moment this testimonial was provided, in 2018.