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Figuring Out the Best Way to Get Your Business Insured

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StrategyDriven Risk Management Article | Figuring Out the Best Way to Get Your Business Insured

40 percent of businesses don’t reopen after a disaster. That’s the bad news.

The worst news? We’re in the middle of a disaster. The COVID-19 pandemic is taking the economy to the cleaners and leaving many small businesses on their death bed.

The good news? As a business owner, there are steps you can take to protect your business from foreseen and unforeseen disasters. One such step is to purchase adequate commercial insurance.

This sounds easy and straightforward, but it’s not. You must find out the best way to get your business insured; otherwise, you could end up underinsuring or even over-insuring your company.

Continue reading to learn how to go about insuring your business.

Identify and Assess Your Risks

Every business faces a wide range of risks.

Some risks affect all kinds of businesses regardless of their industry or niche, and others only affect certain types of businesses. For example, owners of medical practices face malpractice risk. Restaurants don’t face this kind of risk.

However, both businesses do face a fire risk. An electric fault can result in a fire that razes down the buildings that house both businesses.

As such, the first step to insuring your business adequately is to identify all the risks it faces. You can do this on your own or you can hire a risk assessment professional to help you.

If you’re hiring a professional, ensure they’ve got enough industry-specific experience. If you own a logging business, for example, an industry risk specialist is in a better position to identify logging insurance risks than a risk pro who specializes in the retail industry.

After identifying all your risks, assess their threat-level. Which risks pose a more imminent threat? Which ones are less likely to affect your business?

Next, what amount of damage is every risk likely to cause?

With a proper risk assessment, you’ll know the amount of coverage you need to protect your business.

Determine the Kind of Insurance Policies You Need

Wouldn’t it be awesome if insurance policies offered a blanket policy that covers all the risks your business faces?

Well, some large insurance companies offer customized policies, but it would rarely be a blanket policy. Also, there’s the general liability insurance policy that covers most of the risks your business faces, but it’s barely adequate on its own.

Yet, a common mistake small business owners make is purchasing general liability insurance and stopping there. Don’t make this mistake.

There are several other types of business insurance policies you should buy, depending on the nature of your business. Here are some of those policies:

Property Insurance

If you run a brick and mortar store and you own the building, purchase property insurance.

Your building faces a number of risks that can result in extensive damage. Fires and natural disasters, such as floods and windstorms, can destroy the building, forcing you to abandon it until repairs are made.

A property insurance cover will compensate you for the damage and other losses.

If you run a home-based business, you might want to add on to your homeowners’ insurance policy, so that it covers your commercial activities as well.

Business Interruption Insurance

You don’t need to look beyond the coronavirus to see how a disaster can disrupt your business operations.

During such times, business interruption insurance is your ally. Depending on the terms of coverage, the insurer should compensate you for the losses you make during the interruption period.

Workers’ Compensation Insurance

Do you have more than 3 employees?

In most states, that’s the requirement for purchasing workers’ compensation insurance. When an employee gets injured on the job, you won’t worry about compensating them for their medical expenses and other losses. Your workers’ comp provider will do that.

Cybersecurity Insurance

If your business has digitized some or all of its operations, it’s imperative to buy cybersecurity insurance.

43 percent of online attacks now target small businesses like yours, which means your risk level is high. A cybersecurity insurance policy will protect your business from the effects of an attack, including business interruption and data loss.

Other types of insurance you might need include product liability insurance and commercial vehicle insurance.

Find the Best Insurance Provider

You’ve probably heard horror stories of insurance companies that refuse to settle claims. If you don’t do your homework when looking for an insurance provider, you might end up telling such stories.

You want to work with a legitimate, reputable insurance company.

Read up online reviews about a specific insurance carrier before giving them your money. What are past and current clients saying about their service quality? Do they take forever to settle valid claims?

Also, you want to work with an insurance company that provides most, if not all, of the insurance policies your business needs. This way, you’ll be in a better position to negotiate for discounts when renewing your policies.

Consider Self-Insurance

Large corporations don’t typically purchase insurance from other companies. They self-insure, simply because they can afford to cover their risks from their deep wallets.

Self-insurance isn’t just for big companies, though. Even small businesses can develop a self-insurance plan, as long as you know how to go about it.

One effective way is to set up a captive insurance company. This is just like any other insurance firm, only that it is wholly owned by your parent business. You have complete control over its operations.

Get Your Business Insured the Right Way

Getting your business insured adequately can be a costly task, especially if you’re a small business running on a tight budget. However, it’s the right thing to do. Even a minor disaster can bring your business to its knees when you don’t have insurance.

With this guide, you now have the information you need to insure your business the right way.

Keep reading our blog for more business tips and advice.

Collaboration Tools Could Save Your Business Money And Improve Morale

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Rarely does a technology come along that provides nothing but benefits. But that’s precisely what collaboration tools seem to offer. These smart apps allow colleagues to work more efficiently and become happier at the same time.

Collaboration tools have become front-page news during the coronavirus pandemic. Businesses need quality solutions they can use to keep remote colleagues connected.

What Are Collaboration Tools?

Collaboration tools are essentially anything that makes it easier for people to work as a team. They facilitate the exchange of information and offer features that allow multiple people to work on projects simultaneously, even if they occupy remote locations.

Some collaboration tools offer messaging and real-time chat facilities. Others provide colleagues with the ability to edit documents or designs in concert with other people, dramatically boosting output.

Practically every collaboration tool depends on the cloud. Most are software-as-a-service. The business pays a monthly premium for a certain number of accounts, and then colleagues enjoy the proceeds.

Collaboration tools are easy to roll out. You don’t actually need a considerable amount of in-house expertise to get them up and running. If you have an MSP, they can take care of the process for you. And if you don’t, you simply download the relevant client, and the vendor will do most of the rest of the work for you.

What Are The Benefits Of Collaboration Tools?

We’ve alluded to the benefits of collaboration tools already in the above discussion. But it’s worth reiterating them here, to make it clear.

  • Better communication. With so many workers absent from the office, communication has become a sticking point for many firms. Keeping information flowing is a big challenge and one that they’re finding increasingly difficult. Collaboration software can fully reverse this situation and improve overall data fluidity in your organization compared to your regular setup. One colleague can start a project in the morning, and then another can finish it later in the day.
  • Keep track of current versions. What’s more, you can avoid ridiculous renaming of documents, like “final version 3.” The software just updates your work in the cloud, providing everyone with the latest version, plus a history of all revisions.
  • Keep people connected. Everyone wants to feel like they’re a part of the office, even if they’re not there. They don’t want to feel like they’re part of the “out-group” and that people at HQ are somehow more important. Collaboration tools can stop this process in its track, allowing everyone to make valuable contributions to the work of the firm.

You should note that the collaboration tools also differ, depending on the underlying hardware. The difference between consumer and business Microsoft Surface devices is that the latter makes it much easier for colleagues to communicate with each other. Sharing options are better, as is the support for the collaboration tools themselves.

Collaboration tools in the cloud also allow you to cut down on the admin cost of administering your documents and systems. You no longer have to keep folders full of drafts of work, just in case you have to revert to a previous version. Instead, the cloud provides all that functionality natively. It’s almost magical.

Increase Your Profits

So what’s the effect of all of this on profitability? Quite large, as it turns out.

According to research, only around 14 percent of all emails actually have anything to do with getting work done. However, workers spend roughly half their day responding to emails, meaning that they have a massive effect on overall productivity.

Collaboration tools help to put an end to this endless back-and-forth. Colleagues know that if they want to check something, they can do it in real-time through the app, instead of sending an electronic letter to their colleagues.

Universal search facilities also help to improve the situation. If a worker is trying to find something, all they do is type a query into search. There’s no need to ask colleagues for further information.

More Security

Online collaboration tools are also incredibly secure. Servers in a secure farm somewhere hold and back up all the information. It’s never going to be perfect, but it’s much better than keeping all your data locally.

Cloud collaboration tool providers regularly scan for security threats and keep your products updated to the latest version. In general, the risks of a breach are low.

To conclude, individuals can make a big difference in your business, but teams are even more potent. If you can bring people together, your company will thrive.

How to Harness the Opportunities of Home Businesses in 2020

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Home Business|How to Harness the Opportunities of Home Businesses in 2020Home businesses are growing in popularity. This could be due to the ability to avoid most of the issues that have hampered the expansion of the retail and the hospitality industry. If you want to base your next business from home, and if you can see the wealth of opportunities that this can offer you, here are the next steps that you should take to move your plan into action.

Consider the Best Home Business Ideas

There are many home business ideas that may be appealing to the seasoned entrepreneur, and you should consider the viability of each of these in reference to the current market. For instance, many small home-based businesses sell small-scale manufactured items, such as home crafts and furniture. Not only this, but you might consider selling products online, such as boutique clothing or even items for other businesses that are currently seeing success. You should also consider this in terms of the type of business that will suit your home environment.

Get the Resources That You Need

Once you have decided on your business plan, the next step that you need to take to harness the opportunity that you have spotted is to invest in the correct resources that you need. For instance, epoxy resin suppliers are popular with home businesses who work to produce furniture and who conduct other creative projects, as they will be able to fulfill all of your adhesive and laminating needs. You may also need to invest in the appropriate gadgets, such as a Wi-Fi booster and a business laptop in order to connect with the outer business world.

Know the Benefits

To truly harness the opportunities of home businesses, you need to understand their benefits, and how this can make home ventures viable. For instance, there are many tax reductions available to businesses that operate out of their home, including the fact that you will be able to say that a percentage of your home’s mortgage and bills are a business expense. Additionally, home businesses have an increased amount of expenditure, including the fact that you will not have to spend a large amount of your profit on rent or employees.

Be a Great Leader

If you have a large home business, you will know that the success of this still relies on the capabilities of your team. The fact that you will be managing team members remotely, though, means that you need to have excellent and clear communication methods and that you are able to delegate and motivate your team effectively.

Network with the Wider Professional World

However, just because your business is operating out of your home, there is no reason why you cannot be part of the wider professional world. In fact, to be successful, it is paramount that you are able to attend virtual networking events and communicate with other businesses online through professional social media platforms. This will enable you to form partnerships, conduct research, and make sure that you are able to put your stamp on your industry.

Why are your Customers Paying You Late? (And What to do About It)

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StrategyDriven Customer Relationship Management Article |Customers Paying Late|Why are your Customers Paying You Late? (And What to do About It)If you keep on finding that your customers are always missing your payment deadlines, then you probably understand how infuriatingly frustrating it can be. You may feel as though you are putting a lot of work in and getting very little out of it, and this is the last thing that you need. If you want to get around that then it is vital that you put in the work to make sure that you are always controlling the process and that you know where you stand. For most business owners, this starts with understanding why your customers are paying late in the first place.

They Are Waiting for Authorisation for Payment

Some companies, especially bigger ones, tend to have very strict payment procedures in place and these need to be navigated properly if you want to get a payment on time. If you can, learn about things like this before you get to the invoice date so that you can ensure that this excuse is never going to be used again.

One of the best and the easiest ways for you to try and safeguard your business against practices like this would be for you to make sure that both you and your client are on the exact same page, right from the get-go. This can be achieved by providing a robust set of terms and conditions. It would also help for you to read more invoicing software for small business at bestinvoicingsoftware.com so you can make a decision on which is the best investment for your business.

They are Waiting on Payment from their Own Customers

When cash flow is tight, some businesses will put off making any payments until they know that they are in a good financial position. At times like this, payment providers will often prioritise their payments and if you are at the bottom of the list then you may find that you are waiting a very long time to get paid. One way that you can overcome this would be for you to keep in touch with your customers. If you want to do this, then you need to get in touch with your customers. If you do this then you will soon find that you can adjust your own cash flow accordingly.

Needing a Copy of the Invoice

Believe it or not, creating a good invoice is a huge part of getting paid on time. It doesn’t matter whether your customer says that they have never received the invoice, or whether they have lost it, it’s vital that you find out about this as soon as you can so that you can prevent any kind of late payment. Put in a courtesy call on the day that you expect the invoice to arrive so that you can make sure it arrived on time, or even switch to e-invoicing.

They Can’t Afford to Pay

The cost of business is continually rising. Widespread late payments and economic uncertainty really do make it hard for businesses to stay on top of the cash flow they have. As a result of this, some customers might not be in a position where they can settle the invoice with the company. In instances like this, it can be very beneficial for you to set up a payment plan so you can get paid eventually, even if it is over a long period of time.