Have you considered if your business could survive a natural disaster? Many do not and are closed permanently because of a tornado, floods, hurricane or one of many of the other disasters that no one has any control over. We all hope this will never happen to us but these natural disasters can happen anywhere and tend to occur without much warning. If you run an online business, a disaster doesn’t even have to happen near you for it to bring your company down. That’s why you need to be prepared for all eventualities if you want to continue trading after a natural disaster.
Take Measures To Protect Your Premises
A natural disaster could cause costly damage to your premises and possibly even cause harm to people inside. By installing certain defenses, you may be able to protect your premises from being damaged, while also protecting everyone inside.
An example could include adding flood defenses to your property if you live near a river or near the sea. This could include installing waterproof cladding, adding flood guards to doors or finding ways to divert water. Even when protecting your property against runoff from rain, you can take measures such as installing porous paving. Flood defense specialists may be able to recommend measures for you to take.
There’s no point trying to defend your premises against every disaster, but you should definitely consider disasters that are high-risk within your local area. For instance, if wildfires are common, you should make sure that your business premises is not built of flammable materials.
Have A Data Recovery Plan
When you’re running an online business, even if it’s just a blog, you need to have a plan in place so that you can recover any of the data you lose should a server be hit by an electrical storm or similar. Luckily, a good data backup service, that can collect data from your computers and servers is pretty easy to find and will do the job quite well in most circumstances. You may also want to look into getting a decent level of IT security so that you can prevent your data from falling into the wrong hands should a disaster leave it vulnerable.
Ideally, your data should be copied to a separate source that is not kept on your business premises and it should be done at least once a day. Then you will know that if you have to retrieve your data, it will not be too far out of date.
The sooner you can access your data and get your business up and running again, the better it will be for your company’s continuity, and your ability to make money. Even losing a day’s trading can send you under if you’re a small business, so it’s vital that you don’t let that happen.
Check Your Insurances
You need to read your insurance policy documents carefully so that you know exactly what you have cover for and what you do not. If the company who operate your servers and store your data do not have cover for things like fire and flood, you need to find one who does. You need to go with companies whose policies to cover all the costs of the disaster, whether they are direct or indirect, which is why some business owners take out extra expense cover.
You can also protect yourself against business interruption, which will cover the profits you would have earned while your business is closed.
Insurance is a very complex area and you really should discuss it with professionals who will be able to ensure that you have all the cover you need and will explain what deductibles you may have to face.
The one thing that is certain is that you should not leave any gaps in your insurance cover, as that could mean the difference between your business surviving or not.
Floods, tornado’s, hurricanes and any other natural disaster always wreak havoc wherever they go. Don’t let your online business be a victim of them through complacency, thinking that because you’re online, they can’t touch you, be prepared and ready to restart as soon as possible.
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