Safeco said its national survey of 500 small business owners (defined as those with less than 100 employees) revealed many do not understand what business interruption insurance can do for them.

The poll, conducted by International Communications Research based in Media, Pa., found that 55 percent of the respondents said they do not have business interruption insurance and 65 percent said they are unfamiliar with it.

Safeco said that a business that meets a catastrophic loss typically takes four-to-six months to rebuild and another six months to a year to get back to the income level they enjoyed prior to the catastrophe.

However, 45 percent of those surveyed believed it would take less than three months to recover.

Six out of ten of the respondents said they did not have the information they needed to determine how much business interruption insurance they needed.

David Strudthoff, director of premium audit services for Safeco, said that the survey came about because the carrier saw smaller businesses buying less business interruption insurance, and wanted to learn why.

"We got some interesting results," he said.

While he admitted that the coverage is difficult and complicated to write because it covers "intangibles," it is an area of opportunity for agents when they get their clients to understand what it covers. He said the added costs stemming from a catastrophe in loss markets and future income can equal the cost of rebuilding the business from scratch.

Safeco, Mr. Strudthoff said, has created an online calculator that helps clients make their purchasing decision by forming a basis from which to start. He said it is not the first such calculator, but it is the simplest, requiring the answering of four questions.

The calculator, Safeco said, is available at its Web site, www.safeco.com/businessincome, or can be incorporated into an agent's Web page.

And for the independent agent, Mr. Strudthoff added, it is not only a business opportunity; it is an extra step that "helps the client to take that extra step to survive a shut down."