Lots of businesses were impacted by Covid-19 in 2020, but are your insurances up to date and ready for 2021?
It’s roughly a year since we first started hearing about a strange new disease in China. It’s been a key topic of conversation at every BBQ, workplace, zoom call and everywhere in between – we’re all (unfortunately) much more knowledgeable about what happens with a global pandemic comes knocking on our doors.
Of course, New Zealand has been incredibly lucky to date, compared to basically every other major country around the globe. Things are, at time of writing, mostly normal domestically and we’re all busy going about our lives. We all know the prospect of another local outbreak is real but everyone can carry on trucking in the meantime.
Or is it not quite that simple?
When it comes to insurance for your business, there are a few more things to consider at your next renewal, thanks to what 2020 threw at everyone.
1. 2020 was a real rollercoaster for the country. Depending on when your insurances renewed, things could have looked very different at your last annual review compared to today. For example, if you renewed in mid-lockdown, perhaps your expected turnover looked quite different at the time, compared to where things are now. Does your insurance reflect this?
2. As well as financial impacts, lots of businesses fundamentally changed the way they operate. Working from home meant big changes for some companies, such as expensive equipment moving out of the office and into private homes. Staff stopped travelling and conducted business over video conferencing. Staff took far less annual leave, meaning holiday days owing to staff boomed. Employee wellbeing, both physical and mental, became even more important. With all these changes in the past year, does your current insurance arrangement take all this into account?
3. Business Interruption Insurance – covering your lost revenue/profit after a loss. We’ve seen how the pandemic can affect business so dramatically but there are many other things that can impact operations to the same, or even greater degree. Now is a perfect time to thoroughly review your current cover, taking learnings from 2020 and making sure you’re insured in the best possible way.
4. Risk management – we all learned a lot about ourselves and our businesses in 2020. Companies responded strongly when Covid-19 hit us – improvising, adapting and surviving the worst of lockdown. However, how many companies could say they were prepared for such an event with a plan in place before it happened? This is Business Continuity Planning, forming a key part of risk management for any business. Nobody expects a crystal ball approach to things going wrong but there are always some good questions to ask, to test resilience when things go wrong.
What happens if one or more key staff can’t work for an extended period? Where would we trade if we couldn’t access our workshop? If our key supplier stopped trading, what alternatives exist and what would the financial impact be? These types of questions are hugely important when considering the risks that every business faces
Insurely has the expertise to guide you through these issues, ensuring your business is not just covered by insurance but asking the right questions to make sure it’s resilient to as many risks as possible.