If you are like every other human being on the planet, you are tired of thinking about and dealing with the pandemic. This is most certainly understandable.
Of course, that isn’t to say that the last few years haven’t taught us many valuable lessons. However, it’s important to move forward, while learning from what happened, without having to remain fixated on fear and guilt. This is doable by creating a well-prepared and protected business, thus lowering the risks that threaten its success.
Lessons We’ve Learned as Business Owners
There were many lessons taught by sudden shifts businesses owners had to adjust to over the span of the last couple of years. They include the following:
- Being Prepared for the Unexpected: To be secure against unfortunate situations that may confront your business, it’s important to optimize cash flow and have comprehensive insurance protection in place, along with business interruption insurance. It’s also vital to have an emergency savings fund saved for your business.
- Be Adaptive to Change: Sometimes, business simply cannot go on as usual. This is why it is important for business owners and leadership to be able to adjust quickly and be adaptive to change when it comes to business operations and employee management.
- Prioritize Your Employees’ Health and Well-Being: The pandemic highlighted our vulnerability as humans when it comes to illnesses, including our mental health. Consequently, it taught us all to promote increased health and well-being for all employees. This means employers must make it a priority for employees to feel safe, valued, and respected in the workplace, whether it be if they are working remotely or in the office.
How to Create a Disaster-Preparedness Plan For Your Business
First, assess the unique risks your business may face. Understand your insurance coverage, and review your policy with your agent to make sure you understand your deductibles, as well as the limits of your insurance and the nature of your coverage. Keep insurance information and contact names and numbers in a safe place, and create a plan for how your business would operate remotely.
Types of Risks That Your Business May Face
One important aspect of creating a business that is properly protected from risk is to understand the risks that you could face as a company. The following are some of the most common types of risks that could come into play:
- Human Risk: This exemplifies humans helping humans, the human element. This means protecting people and providing a way for them to live and work in confidence. Ideally, you want to reduce the human risk element as much as you can.
- Digital Risk: Now considered the #1 risk that keeps business leaders up at night, digital risk is a growing problem. Look at your business through the lens of online connectivity to consider the different areas you need to look at to ensure cyber protection for your business.
- Physical Risk: There are physical risks as well as those affecting the mental well-being of employees. Thankfully, at Winter-Dent, we can help you evaluate your physical risk, ensuring protection for your employees, facilities, vehicles, and more.
- Financial Risk: Obviously, you can’t do business without finances to ensure the bills are paid and your employees are compensated. While there are some elements of life that can’t be predicted, by considering the financial risks that exist for a business, plans can be put in place to offset these risks.
- Compliance Risk: The business world is full of regulations, safeguards, and rules. In order to ensure that you don’t face penalties or fines, you need to understand and adhere to these regulations, which can understandably get confusing.
Let the Past be the Past, and Move Forward with Confidence
Your business has the unique chance now to be better and stronger than ever before. Having the right partners by your side will help ensure that your insurance protection has you covered in your business’ unique risk scenarios.
So, now is a great time to review your current coverage with your insurance agent(s) to determine which areas of your coverage could be improved upon. Reach out to our team at Winter-Dent today to start a conversation with our team of commercial insurance professionals. Or, if you found this information helpful, be sure to subscribe to our blog for more content like this delivered to your inbox each week.
