Across the U.S., severe weather is on the rise. As winter draws to a close, Mother Nature will now phase into its next cycle: spring storm season. Without insurance, damage from spring storm season will hit small-business owners the hardest.
Nationwide's annual Small Business Indicator survey revealed that a majority (68 percent) of small-business owners don't have a written disaster recovery plan — even though about half (49 percent) said it would take their business at least three months to recover from a natural disaster.
The survey was conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of Nationwide from June 10-23 among 502 U.S. small-business owners with fewer than 300 employees. The survey found that:
- 71 percent of small-business owners don't have business interruption insurance, which can be vital to survival since an estimated 25 percent of businesses never reopen following a major disaster
- 21 percent of small-business owners without a written disaster plan said they don't have one because it's not a high priority for them
- 22 percent of small-business owners have already been impacted by a natural disaster
PropertyCasualty360.com asked Mark Anderson, a Nationwide catastrophe expert with 40 years of on-the-ground catastrophe experience, who reported on Nationwide's survey last year, what small-business owners should do to prepare.
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Denny Jacob
Denny Jacob is an associate editor for NU PropertyCasualty360. Contact him at [email protected].
