Special
Report . . .
Insurance Insider Reveals the Secrets of Effective, Comprehensive
Protection:
What You as a Contractor Can
-- and Must -- Do to Shield Your Business from Financial Disaster
and Give You Peace of Mind that the Company Will Continue to Operate and
Generate Revenue!
By Michael C. Konopelski, CIC
If you are like
most people in business, your company is, next to your
family, your pride and joy. It is also the major source of
financial security for you and your family -- your greatest asset.
In many ways,
your business is your life.
It’s your kids’
birthdays, their braces, your family vacation. It’s your house, your yard, your
future. Some day, it’s your retirement.
Your business is
also, unfortunately, your greatest liability. Your business faces no shortage
of potential disasters: accidents, vandalism, problems dealing with
subcontractors, shoddy workmanship, unreasonable deadlines. You could probably
fill the rest of this page with horror stories you’ve heard or, worse,
experienced.
There
literally isn’t enough time in the day to worry about all the things that could
go wrong, which is
hardly a recipe for peace of mind. But you can have peace of mind. Reading this
report is the first, big step to that end.
Why?
Because I, as a
longtime insurance industry insider, am going to share with you my secrets of
peace of mind and business protection. These
secrets are little-known outside of the insurance industry, but they constitute
information that no responsible business owner should be without.
I want to share
this information with you because I know peace of mind is so important. I am
willing -- actually, I’m excited -- to reveal to you the secrets about
insurance. Secrets that ensure your business has all the
protection it needs.
Why would I just
give these secrets away? Because it’s just as good for my business as it is for
you. I want to let you in on the knowledge I have accumulated as an insurance
industry professional and insider. I want to do this because I have found, time
and time again, that generosity and the willingness to provide really great
service come back to me. Tenfold. In fact, that’s how I have built my business.
This report is about
your business, the risks it faces and how an insurance program can be designed
to cover most, or even all, of these risks.
First, start by
imagining a disaster. One day, you get to a work site -- the first one there as
usual. The second you step on the property, you sense something is wrong. The
giant living room window -- the centerpiece of the design of the front of the
house -- has been broken, apparently by people who used it as an entrance
point. There are beer cans all over the living room floor, but that’s hardly
the worst of the vandalism. The hardwood floor is scratched, stained and
basically a mess. There’s glass all over the house because most of the windows
have been broken. You head upstairs to more disaster. The finished drywall in
the master bedroom is badly damaged. The tub in the master bathroom looks like
it was the scene of a fencing match. You stop counting the number of scratches
when you get past the teens.
This house was
scheduled to be finished in a matter of a week or two. Now you’re looking at
many months, maybe more, before this job will be completed.
What do you do,
besides panic? Fortunately, this isn’t reality. Not yet, anyway. It is a
hypothetical situation. But imagine if it did occur. Would
your insurance program cover the additional costs you will incur? The material?
The labor? What about lost time? What about those other jobs
you’ve bid on and were scheduled to start fairly soon? You’re looking at lost
revenue on one hand and the possibly of a lawsuit on the other. What do you
tell this family, who had planned to move into their dream house by the end of
the month?
You need
insurance to cover anything that can hamper your business and endanger your
revenue stream. Anything less than that is not adequate. So how do you get adequate coverage? How
can you know all the risks you face that could hamper your business?
I’ve been
working with contractors for a long time, and I’ve heard every horror story
imaginable. If they were my clients, we were able to take care of their problems. Quickly and
easily. Why? Because we were prepared. In this report, I will
tell you how to be prepared. I will tell you how to get peace of mind. It’s
just four steps away.
1.
Design a disaster
recovery plan for your company.
Insurance can’t cover everything, and all coverages have limitations. So you need a plan that allows you to get the business back up and running as quickly as possible. If you don’t feel you have the expertise to design this plan, there are plenty of professionals out there who can do it for you.
For this recovery plan to be effective, you need to do the following:
ü
Make
duplicate records of both computerized and written documents.
ü
Identify
the critical business activities and the resources needed to support them.
ü
Compile
lists of important phone numbers and addresses, including those of local and
state emergency management agencies, major clients, suppliers, your bank, your
insurance agent and claim representatives for your insurance companies, as well
as phone numbers and addresses for your staff. These lists should be kept
off-premises, perhaps in a safe deposit box.
2. Have a business
insurance specialist conduct a risk analysis of your company and its
operations.
No
two companies are the same, even two that are in the same business. No
contractor does exactly what you do. You build unique structures, and such
construction entails unique risks.
You need an expert to assess your company
and the specific risks it faces -- and put together a comprehensive insurance
plan to protect you.
3.
Use an independent insurance agent.
As
a business owner, you want as many options as there are available for your
insurance program. As such, you don’t want an agent who is an employee of an
insurance company. Or an agent whose paycheck is tied to just one company. You
want someone who will work for YOU. You want someone who has access to a variety of insurance
companies, a variety of programs. You want someone who can compare price and
coverage options. Someone who can get the most comprehensive
coverage for you, possibly with several insurers that will each provide a piece
of your program.
There’s only one type of insurance agent who can do all of this for you. An independent agent.
4.
Don’t trust the
financial protection of your business to an
insurance agent who does not
specialize in contractors.
Don’t
trust the future of your business to someone who does not have a comprehensive
understanding of the special problems contractors such as you face every day. A
specialist? Absolutely. Look, insurance is a huge industry. There’s
insurance for everything. (You want alien abduction insurance?
You can buy it.) And nobody can specialize in all of it.