Protecting your business from bushfire disasters

Hot temperatures, high winds and dry conditions make Australia extremely prone to bushfires, causing devastation to many people across the country. These disasters often result in the loss of lives, pets, livestock, personal belongings, homes and businesses. Not only does this bring emotional and physical loss, but loss of a business can also have devastating impact to employees and customers. Recovering from a serious bushfire takes courage, hard work, determination and a certain amount of resourcefulness, but this process can be alleviated to some degree for businesses by having the right type of insurance policies in place, helping business owners back into business, reducing the impact to them, their employees and customers.

Preparing your business for bushfire season

Natural disasters, such as bushfires can also have an incredible impact on insurance premiums, therefore preparing your business for the bushfire season is one way you can help to not only protect your business, but also help to keep premiums down. Here are five tips to prepare your business for the bushfire season.

1. Know if your business is in a bushfire prone area, identify any warning systems that are in place.
2. Create a disaster plan for your business and ensure that your employees are aware of this plan and know what to do in the event of a bushfire.
3. Back up all your hardcopy documents and digital files, so that you can be up and running again quickly.
4. Create a business continuity plan to safeguard business reputation and responsibilities to suppliers, stakeholders and customers.
5. Accurately assess the value of your business assets and discuss your insurance needs with an insurance expert.

Seeking the right advice will have your business well positioned to recover with minimum impact from a disaster. Speak to one of our specialists today. General Advice Warning The information provided is to be regarded as general advice. Whilst we may have collected risk information, your personal objectives, needs or financial situations were not taken into account when preparing this information. We recommend that you consider the suitability of this general advice, in respect of your objectives, financial situation and needs before acting on it. You should obtain and consider the relevant product disclosure statement before making any decision to purchase this financial product.