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... natural disasters happened in the United States. With $77 billion in insured ...

There are many reasons why your company needs a business continuity plan. Having a strategy – before an event happens – helps to maximize the chance your business can recover while minimizing the loss of property, life and assets. Developing your business continuity plan should be a thoughtful process resulting in a plan that can be beneficial to you if an event occurs. Start by assembling a team of key decision-makers who will lead your continuity planning efforts. Senior management, team leaders and anyone with in-depth knowledge about business operations should be included. Four Steps to Developing an Effective Business Continuity Plan Identify threats or risks Understanding the risks that could leave employees, customers, vendors, property and operations vulnerable is fundamental. Threats can include, but are not limited to natural disasters, malicious attacks, power outages and system failures. Identify the risks most likely to occur based on historical, geographical, organizational and other factors. Then weigh the probability of each event against its potential impact to your business, as well as your readiness to respond. Conduct a business impact analysis Identify the people, places, providers, processes and programs critical to the survival of your business. What functions and resources, if interrupted or lost, could impact your ability to provide goods and services or meet regulatory requirements? Consider who and what is absolutely necessary to restore critical operations. Then prioritize the need to restore each item after the event. Plan to use limited resources wisely. Complementary functions can always be restored later. Adopt controls for prevention and mitigation Prevention and mitigation planning and activities are intended to help prevent an event (such as a fire or explosion from unsafe conditions) as well as to reduce the impact or severity of an event (such as relocating critical equipment to a higher elevation in flood-susceptible areas). Your prevention and mitigation plans should address, among other things, emergency response, public relations, resource management, and employee communications. Test, exercise and improve your plan routinely A business continuity plan is an evolving strategy that should adapt to your company’s ever-changing needs. Test and update it regularly – yearly at a minimum – or any time critical functions, facilities, suppliers or personnel change. Train employees to understand their role in executing the plan, too. Exercises can include discussions or hypothetical walk-throughs of scenarios to live drills or simulations. The key is to ensure the plan works as intended.

No one expects the worst to happen, but sometimes it just does. Whether it is a complete power outage or a fire breaking out in your break room, preparing for the unexpected should be part of your overall safety program. While prevention should always be your first priority, preparedness may reduce the severity of the event and help maintain your employees' safety. Emergency Planning is Your Responsibility Every company should have a published, well-communicated and practiced emergency preparedness and life safety plan. The National Fire Protection Association and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) provide codes, regulations and guidance on emergency action and fire prevention plans, including minimum standards. OSHA, in fact, requires a written emergency action plan for workplaces with 10 or more employees. Employers with fewer than 10 employees must still have an emergency action plan, but they may communicate the plan orally to employees. Of course, a plan is only as good as its effectiveness, when put into action. How would your plan fare in a real emergency? Do your employees know what to do? These are questions to ask before an emergency happens. Communicating, training and drilling are all essential elements to include in your emergency action plan, and can help make the critical difference in life safety outcomes. Effective Planning Can Save Lives In the first critical minutes of an emergency, taking the right steps can help save lives. Planning ahead and maintaining a well-trained emergency team can help make the critical difference. Appoint, organize and train designated staff with their emergency response duties and responsibilities. Document and distribute emergency procedures, including how to notify the fire department, evacuate employees and provide accommodations for those with special assistance needs. Publish instructions for the use of emergency equipment, such as the voice communication system, the alarm system or emergency power supply system. Post procedures for confining, controlling and extinguishing fires. Post procedures for assisting the fire department in accessing and locating the fire. Communicate your evacuation plan to all employees, visitors, vendors and contractors. Distribute the plan to emergency personnel who will be responsible for taking actions to maximize the safety of building occupants, including the fire department and designated emergency management and supervisory staff. Post your evacuation/floor plan exit diagram in clearly visible locations. Assign locations away from the building or job site for employees to gather. Practice drills on a regular basis. Monitor and evaluate drill performance to consider improvements. Include full, partial and shelter-in-place evacuations, designed in cooperation with local authorities, to familiarize employees with procedures. Develop a roll call system to account for all persons and notifications to the fire department of any missing person. Travelers safety professionals see a broad spectrum of businesses and facilities and understand the plans used to ensure emergency preparedness. Every day, we share our insights with our customers to help keep their businesses, and most importantly, their people, safe.

...ing education and networking opportunities through organizations like RIMS. ...

...on to determine if there are opportunities to prevent or mitigate loss. And ho... the loss potential, and/or the opportunity to prevent or mitigate risks. - I...

Three out of five firms that suffer a major disaster go out of business or are sold. Preparing your business to survive a disastrous event involves a multi-step process: assessment, planning, implementation, testing, and documentation. Assessment: Brainstorm and list all potential losses. Then rate them on a 1-10 scale, with 10 being the most disastrous and 1 having the least impact on the business. Planning: Formulate a comprehensive, detailed action plan, using both in-house and outside sources. The plan should include both steps to prevent the loss and remedies to take if the loss occurs. Be as specific as possible. Implementation: Act on the plan. Determine what steps you must take to now insure a positive outcome if disaster strikes; Who will be accountable for taking these steps when and to whom will they report? Testing: For example, if you're planning to deal with a computer crash, data recovery is essential. Test back-up media regularly to ensure that they will be available when needed. All too many businesses lose data due to malware or mechanical breakdown only to find that their backup is either corrupted or unavailable when needed. Documentation: Put the details of the plan (who, what, when, and where) in writing. Keep one copy in the office, another on the computer, a third off premises - and make sure that every manager knows these locations. Finally, review and update the plan every six months. Although nothing is foolproof, implementing these five steps can go far to prevent a disastrous loss, or at least, mitigate its impact. To learn more about developing a disaster plan for your business, feel free to give us a call at any time.

Hurricane Sandy, tornadoes, flood -- all of these disasters affected construction firms during the past year. Some companies took direct hits, while others suffered from massive service demands, and shortages of help and supplies. Although your business might never face such massive "destruction and distress," other events --everything from IT failure to vandalism -- could trigger a crisis. Whether it's a catastrophe or a stressful disruption, the best way to prepare for any potential disaster is to develop a catastrophe plan in advance. This plan should allow your staff to mobilize the right resources quickly in the right order so you can get up and running with as many contingencies as possible accounted for in advance. How do you go about developing a plan? What's the process? Who should you include? How often should you review and update it? An effective plan should involve a "business resumption team" with managers from these areas: Information technology Communications, both internal and external Moves and relocations Services and logistics Salvage and security Customer service Before a crisis erupts, the team will determine what activities to follow, assign responsibilities for these tasks, and provide the resources and information needed. When compiled and organized, these activities, responsibilities, resources, and information make up the disaster plan. Don't wait for a crisis to uncover the gaps in your preparations. Get started now on creating and/or updating your plan. Feel free to give us a call so we can offer our advice and recommendations. Insurance might not solve all your crisis planning problems, but it can provide a solid foundation.

Every business is vulnerable to disruptions. Most companies have taken steps to mitigate the impact of major hazards. However many businesses have neglected smaller, more probable perils, ranging from inadequate fire protection and offsite data backup, through the death or disability of key personnel, to over-reliance on a limited number of vendors. While you can transfer many risks that could disrupt your business to insurance companies (through such coverages as Business Interruption and Extra Expense policies), this probably won’t be enough to ensure that the company will survive or continue its long-term growth and profitability. To prevent and/or reduce the impact of such a mishap, it makes sense to implement Business Continuity Planning (BCP). This process involves three key steps: Pre-disruption planning. Assess the “risk and threat environment” of your business and take steps to reduce these hazards and weaknesses. Disruption response. The extent and nature of losses will depend on the effectiveness of the emergency plans that you implement during the incident to provide a methodical, rational, and coordinated approach to dealing with the disruptions. Post-disruption recovery. While the first two steps can reduce or mitigate risk, the recovery process focuses on rebuilding and restoration. Although many businesses depend heavily on central and distributed computer resources, a comprehensive BCP involves a wide variety of crucial activities that need to continue with minimal interruption. Your BCP should not be a one-time project that involves creating a plan and then moving on to “business as usual” – but a long-term commitment to design, develop, implement, and maintain a comprehensive, company-wide strategy to keep your business running effectively.. We’d be happy to review the risks facing your business and tailor a Business Continuation Plan to your needs.

Natural disasters can do significant damage to construction firms. Some suffer direct hits, while others endure massive service demands and shortages of help and supplies. Although you might escape massive destruction and distress, what other events might cause your company to suffer a crisis? IT failure? Burglary or vandalism? Professional liability? Fire? Loss of market? Whether disaster strikes as a catastrophic or stressful disruption, the best way to prepare for them is crisis management. Now is the time to develop a plan that will allow you and your staff to mobilize the right resources in the right order quickly to get you up and running as smoothly as possible. How do you develop such a plan? What's the process? Who should you include? How often should you review and update it? We can help by providing risk management advice and recommendations, together with materials and resources tailored to your needs and exposures. Although insurance might not solve all your post-crisis problems, it can certainly provide a solid foundation for your planning should the worst happen. Don't wait for a crisis to uncover the gaps in your current preparations. Start now.

Our Transportation 1-10 Unit program is recognized as a growing lea...