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Evaluating Your Business’ Disaster Preparedness | SERVPRO® of East Nashville, Madison, Goodlettsville
3/23/2020 (Permalink)
Risk management is a key part of owning your own business, particularly when those risks are related to severe weather and natural disasters. Understanding how your business can increase its preparedness and making necessary improvements will lead to a much safer working environment and also help you protect your investment and livelihood.
By gaining more knowledge about the three pinnacles of preparedness—coverage, safety and planning—you can determine where you are adequately prepared for a disaster as well as areas where preparations could be strengthened.
Following a disaster, many businesses find out the hard way that their commercial insurance policy does not cover as much as they assumed it would. To be fully covered against severe weather or other emergencies, add-ons such as umbrella coverage, interruption insurance and flood policies are often necessary. It is wise to have a sound understanding of your policy so you can determine if there are coverage gaps you may need to fill in.
Planning ahead is one of the key elements to keeping you and your staff safe during a disaster or emergency. It is smart to plan for many scenarios so you can be prepared for anything that comes your way. Put an evacuation plan in place in case of a fire or other localized event, but also plan for a scenario where you and your staff are instructed to stay put by local officials. Be sure you have adequate supplies stocked in the event that you must wait for help to arrive.
Having to pause operations due to disaster-related damages can be devastating for a business, which is why reopening quickly is the main focus for most business owners. You can speed up this process by picking a commercial restoration company in advance and knowing how to apply for recovery loans from the Small Business Administration. This will allow you to make the call as soon as restoration can be started and receive low-interest funding right away.