Disaster Planning for Home & Business
- Prepare Your Home and Business for Disaster
- Get serious about an Emergency Kit for you home and office
- Your business will not survive without a Contingency Plan
- A Financial Plan is the essential last step
Emergency Kit
- House or office may be dangerous or impossible to enter
- It is likely there will be NO outside help for 3 to 7 days
- Three to seven days of supplies are essential
- Water, food (no cooking)
- Clothes, shoes, rain protection, sleeping gear
- Medicines, radios, flashlights, batteries, some cash, etc.
- Special needs for babies, elder people, pets
- Have a family contact plan and practice/ update it every quarter
Contingency Plan
- Up to 80% of small businesses disappear in a major crisis if there’s no plan
- Backup or copies of data, project details, equipment and supply inventories
- Contact information for employees, vendors, clients, etc.
- Consider needs to shelter in place, transportation back to homes, families’ safety
- Create a team with assigned responsibilities to handle basic business, employee and customer needs, access to all information/ equipment/ supplies/ cash/ etc.
- Specific plans will depend on your business type and needs
- Can all employees work from home?
- Will you need an alternate, temporary site?
- Find a realtor who can help list available sites;
- Consider a competitor’s premises in another area
Financial Plan
- Your business and your family will need money or access to funds to weather the recovery period
- LOC
- HELOC
- Stash of cash – small bills and accessible
- Consider insurance coverage options
- EQ on your home
- Check with broker or agent: CEA, Geo-Vera
- Coverage is expensive and limited and deductibles are high
- Building, minimal contents and additional living expense
- EQ on your home
- Business EQ coverage
- Full coverage can be expensive and deductibles are high
- EQSL might be a minimal alternative
- Prevention steps as an alternative to insurance
- Prevent collapse – various retrofit projects
- Prevent fire from inside; prepare for fire from outside
- Consider parking a car outside the garage for easy access
-Charles Wilson, Risk Smart Solutions