Will insurance cover business losses in the event of a disaster?

If there's one thing business people dislike, it's a loss of productivity. In the event of a natural disaster or some other kind of damage to your business, the property damage is often a secondary concern to the potential loss of business income. If a thunderstorm knocks over a tree onto your restaurant, you're naturally going to be concerned about the damage to your place of business, but most sensible business people have an insurance policy to cover property damage. What is often not covered is the hit you will take in the ledger books. 

Shutting down your business for repairs can mean thousands of dollars in lost sales and customers and, potentially, the loss of long-term clients. If you're a business providing an essential service, clients may have trouble coping with a loss in operational capacity, even if it wasn't your fault. In a fast-paced business world, reliability is essential and those who can't deliver may not get the clients in the future. 

So what can you do? Consider chatting with your insurance broker about Business Interruption Insurance. For a relatively inexpensive add-on to your regular commercial insurance, you can insure your business against the potential loss of income you may experience in the time it takes you to repair the damage. If it takes a week for the tree to be removed from your restaurant patio and for the deck to be patched up, your provider will pay out for the income lost in that time period. Ultimately, it just makes business sense!