Disasters can strike at any time, and any small business owner can see their hopes and dreams of having an enterprise slip away from them if they aren’t protected with the necessary business insurance policies and business disaster plans.
This is exactly what happened to Kyle Berner, founder of ecofriendly startup Feelgoodz, which was affected by the 2012 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, reported The Wall Street Journal.
“We were in trouble of actually going out of business because we didn’t have any cash reserves,” Berner told the news outlet.
Be prepared for any and all natural disasters
Taking the necessary precautions can assist small business owners in making sure that their firm won’t be devastated by one catastrophe. According to the news source, having funds set aside and creating a plan to manage natural disasters are just a couple of ways owners of small firms can stay protected. Storing away other types of information such as security passwords, contact information of key vendors and instruction for completing certain tasks can also be helpful
“It’s about having all this information available because when a disaster hits, you’re not going to remember all of these things,” Gail Moraton, business resiliency manager for the nonprofit the Institute for Business & Home Safety, told the news source.
Purchase the right business insurance policies
Being prepared for all types of natural disasters can help small business owners protect their firm from being greatly affected from anything beyond a business owner’s control. The next step is to make a well-informed decision on business insurance policies. The news source stated there are some policies that small business owners are required to purchase by law, while there are others that are recommended for owners of small firms in certain industries.
“You have to understand what your insurance covers and what it excludes,” Dennis Ceru, an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, told the source. “You always want to have at least an annual review of your coverage, especially if you’re a startup, because you may quickly exceed the initial coverage as your business grows larger.”
Small business owners who are located in areas where flooding or tornadoes are a regular occurrence should be sure to invest in insurance policies that protect against those types of catastrophes.
