Despite preparations, many small and mid-sized companies won’t survive in the wake of a disaster. If this concerns you at all, this incredible article from "Insurance Networking News" highlights some of the biggest reasons a company's disaster plan is set up to fail.
What do restaurants, florists, delis, butchers and bakeries all have in common? They’re all businesses that deal with perishable goods. These are goods that, if exposed to a prolonged period of power loss, could render the business completely crippled or destroyed.
If you own a business that deals with goods that need refrigeration it is absolutely imperative that you add spoilage coverage as part of your insurance policy. Spoilage insurance coverage aids the business owner by compensating them for revenue lost if food should spoil. It also covers the loss of product if refrigeration should break down.
Contamination and spoilage in an establishment that deals with food is especially significant as illness or even death can result from improperly kept food. Perishable food begins to degrade as fast as 15 minutes of being out of refridgeration. With inspectors cracking down on food service establishments, this is not a risk a businessowner wants to take.
Adding spoilage coverage to a commercial policy covers consumable goods which includes damage caused by a change in temperature due to an equipment failure, power failure, or contamination. This coverage can aid your business in replacing your product and even your lost income.
The spoilage protection endorsement on a commercial policy is extremely affordable and can save a business from collapse. If you own a business that deals with perishable goods, make sure to talk with your insurance provider and make them aware of this immensely beneficial safeguard.
When it comes to business disaster planning, there are generally two contrasting attitudes. The first is that of invincibility, claiming that "there's no way something like that is going to affect me." The other attitude is on the opposite end of the spectrum. These people plan for the absolute worst, the no-so-bad, the ugly and everything in between. So which school of thought is the right one? The answer is "neither."
The reality of the matter is that there are very real forces in the world that, if hit by any one of them, could render your business crippled and thus your way of life completely shattered. With that being said, there is no reason to preemptively cripple your business with endless and needless preparation for unrealistic threats. This is no way to run a business.
As this blog is being written Hurricane Isaac is making its way over Florida and heading towards Louisiana. Given the track record for terrible weather in that part of the country, planning for a hurricane should be at the top of the list for any business in that area. However, for a region that is not prone to hurricanes, different priorities should be made. It all comes down to analyzing risk and determining what reasonable precautions to set in place are. In many cases, natural disasters of any type should actually be way down on the list of threats. In most areas, a simple power outage from a blown transformer in the area is a more realistic threat to a business than a hurricane, tornado or earthquake.
If you own a business and want to make sure you are protected from potential business-crippling disasters, your best route is to contact a business disaster planning consultant. These consultants analyze your business, determine what its greatest threats are and set your business on a realistic and practical course for facing a disaster.
What do you think is the greatest threat facing your business?
Like it or not, summer is slowly coming to a close, school bells will be ringing, and (for those of us with changing seasons) we'll be bundling up before we go outside. This is the time of year, kids begin to groan about going back to school. For those of us who don't have long summer vacations like they do, it can be fun to rag of them a bit. However, even though we may not be going back to school in the traditional sense, we grownups can learn a thing or two about insurance that will keep our kids protected this year:
Home Insurance: If your child is heading off to college, he/she will likely be bringing along a decent amount of "stuff." Dorm rooms today are decked out more like mini apartments than the jail cells of the past. Today, you'd be hard to find dorms without laptops, high def TVs, speaker systems, iPads etc. Your homwowners insurance will most likely cover your child's belongings however, there are generally limits to this coverage. Additional protection can be easily added to a policy for very little additional premium. It's best to go over your policy with your insurance agent to make sure your child's dorm room contents are protected. If you're planning on visiting your agency, bring your child along and involve him/her in the process so they can gain a better understanding on how insurance protection works. It's possible they might ask a question or two that you woulnd't think to ask (it's ok to not let them know that.)
Car Insurance: Nobody wants to put their child in harm’s way, but it is inevitable that your child learns to drive a car. Auto insurance and driving a
car go hand in hand. Now only will auto insurance protect the vehicle your child is driving, but also will protect your child in case he/she damages someone else's property while behind the wheel. With that being said, you don't have to break the bank to find quality protection. Many insurance providers give a good student discount on car insurance if the teen maintains a B/3.0 or better overall average.
Back to school time is a great time to review your own insurance to make sure you are completelyprotected. It is important to look over your policies and tell your
agent if things within your home or auto have changed from the previous year. There is no need to wait until your policy is up for renewal to make changes. Being proactive with your insurance is a great habit to get in to protect yourself and your family
.
Make sure to check out this great blog article from Allen Insurance and Financial in Bar Harbor, Maine.
Organizing is never just putting stuff in its rightful place and calling it a day. It is a systematic process with a heavy dose of behavior modification that takes a great deal of strength, determination, and will power. Once a room, house, office, etc. is physically organized, the work is only half done. Keeping the space organized is the other half. This is where a Home or Business Inventory can be extremely beneficial.
Think of an Inventory of a blueprint for an organized space. Tanking inventory with photos, video, and written descriptions of the items within each room is an extremely powerful tool for staying organized. A Home or Business Inventory is a binder that is laid out room by room documenting photos and written descriptions of where each items should be in a room. The addition of video to the inventory caps off the process, allowing for easy reference of what should and shouldn't be in each room. A Home or Business is also helpful when one is downsizing, moving, planning an estate, getting divorced etc.
For more information on how a Home or Business Inventory can aid you in your organizing, as well as the myriad of other uses for an inventory, click here. We work with Professional Organizers as well as people who are in need of organizing. We offer professionally documented third-party inventory services, but equally important, we can show you how to conduct your own Inventory.
Thanks very much to Denise and Bernie Hannon for their testimonial of our Photo Scanning Service!
"It was a very quick turnaround for the large box full of pictures from the attic to be turned into a digital photo album. Less than a week! No sooner did we get them back when we created a digital photo album on our iPad and then started sending friends and family individual ones to reminisce and enjoy.
Many of these pictures we haven't looked at for years now and they've brought back so many good memories. What was especially important to us was the ability to preserve the older photos, many of which were black and white and were in various stages of deterioration. Thankfully, now they're preserved forever. We were pleased to see the quality of the images, even for the old and faded photos. The resolution is terrific too. We ran a photo show on our 50" LDC TV and everyone remarked at the quality of the images.
We are already planning to send the rest of our pictures over to Patrick for digitizing. If we knew it were that easy, we would have done it long ago.
Many thanks for the service and for the memories and the smiles they've brought to our faces."
Denise & Bernie HannonStow, MA
Click here for more information on our convenient and fast photo scanning service.
If you're over the age of 20, chances are you remember a time before digital cameras. You couldn't immediately view the photos you just took directly on the camera or your computer. If you wanted to share your photos, you had to get duplicates made at the developers. You likeley have boxes or albums in your house full of paper photos.
So what would happen if those photos of yours were destroyed by fire, flood, tornado, etc.? No amount of money can replace those memories.
Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem. Steadfast Disaster Planning's Photo Scanning Service takes your photos, scans them using high resolutions scanners, and saves them in digital format. Now, those boxes of vulnarable, paper photos are now conveniently preserved on DVD. At your request, Markham Group will upload your photos to
the cloud storage site of your choice so you can easily share them with family and friends.
Everything is done in house and handled safely and securely by professionals.
There has never been been an easier, more convienent and inexpensive way to bring your photos into the digital age to preserve your memories for years to come!
Click here to visit Steadfast Disaster Planning's Photo Scanning Service to learn more.
Mention this blog article and recieve 10% off your first order!
Steadfast Disaster Planning is a Division of Markham Group Inc.
While many Americans have insurance to protect their home and possessions in the event of a disaster, a recent survey finds many of them do not have a home inventory to make those home insurance claims easier.
The poll, from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, found that 59 percent of consumers did not have an inventory of their possessions.
Even among those people who did, 48 percent did not have any receipts, and more than 25 percent did not have either photos or a backup copy of the inventory outside of the home. The majority of lists were also more than a year old.
"Violent weather events affected approximately 80 percent of the nation's population over the past six years," says Kevin M. McCarty, NAIC President and Florida Insurance Commissioner. "Creating a detailed inventory of your possessions is one the best ways to ensure you have the right amount of homeowners or renters insurance for you and your family."
Having home insurance can prevent people from facing financial difficulties. The Insurance Information Institute says it's common for policies to replace possessions valued from 50 to 70 percent of the home's coverage level.
March 15, 2012
By: Carrie Van Brunt-Wiley
Source: HomeInsurance.com
Markham Group's Steadfast Disaster Planning offers a wide selection of Home Inventory services to fit your needs.
My name is Patrick Martin. I am the VP of Disaster Planning for Steadfast Disaster Planning, one of the two new divisions of Markham Group. If you've been to our site before, you may have noticed that our website has been going through a bit of a growth spurt while we slowly but surely implement these new divisions into the company. Believe me when I say that this has not been an overnight transition as it has taken many months of planning and adjusting to get things in place. Needless to say, we are extremely pleased with the outcome and we are sure you will be too.
So what does Steadfast Disaster Planning do? Simply put, we provide peace of mind. Now, I realize that this is somewhat of a clichéd term, but there really is no better way to describe the services we provide. Your home and your family are your life. Unfortunately, there are many threats out there that could disrupt these things, potentially destroying your life as you know it. Wouldn't you sleep more soundly at night knowing that you have put every safeguard in place to prepare you and your family for a potential disaster?
From Photo Scanning to Home Inventory, Steadfast Disaster Planning has a suite of services to prepare your household for a disaster and preserve your way of life.
What sets us apart however, is how the services within Steadfast Disaster Planning coordinate and integrate with the Insurance and Financial Services departments of Markham Group. Our different departments are in fact pieces of a much larger puzzle, providing you, the client with an overall planning and protection plan not seen anywhere else.
I encourage you to visit our Steadfast Disaster Planning page to learn of the different services we provide. Please check back to this blog often as we will be introducing and exploring more of the services of Markham Group!
If you would like more information regarding our Disaster Planning Services, you can email me at PatrickM@InsuranceInMass.com or call me at 1-800-971-0800 ext. 317