If you want to ensure your business is ready for an unforeseen disaster, business interruption insurance is exactly what you need. This type of insurance protects you from losing your business in instances of natural disasters. Other events can include fires caused by uncontrollable electrical issues.
This type of insurance helps cover expenses like rent, salaries, and operational costs. While there’s no way of preventing disasters from happening, business interruption insurance lets you have peace of mind, allowing you to focus on recovery instead of stressing over the damage.
In this article, we’ll give you three business interruption insurance providers that you can choose from, helping you secure your financial future against the unexpected.
Use Business Insurance to Compare Quotes
If you don’t want to go through the tedious process of calling insurance providers to compare quotes, you can use Business Insurance. Business Insurance is a platform that compares insurance providers.
To access the quotes, you need to provide your details. Once you’ve done that, a consultant will contact you to gather details on what you’d like to cover and provide insurance quotes for your business.
This approach ensures that the insurance quotes you receive are not generic but are tailored to aspects unique to your business. This includes industry, location, and other risk factors.
What Does Business Interruption Insurance Cover?
Business interruption insurance covers the financial loss that your businesses suffer from unforeseen events. The financial loss covered can include loss of income, continued operational expenses, and additional expenses like rent for a new space, etc.
Some insurance providers can cover disruptive events caused by load shedding. Regarding natural disasters, insurance providers would typically specify the type of natural disasters covered. This can include floods, fires, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, snowstorms, earthquakes, mudslides, and windstorms.
Business insurance coverage is not just for businesses based in areas prone to natural disasters. However, any business can find itself facing an unexpected interruption, such as a drunk driver crashing through your wall or lightning causing a tree to fall on your roof.
1. Miway
Miway covers businesses for financial loss suffered due to business interruption, such as a natural disaster or fire at your business premises. Businesses can opt to be covered for a longer period, which comes at an additional premium. Cover that businesses can choose from includes fixed expenses, loss of operating profit, and additional working expenses.
Businesses can also choose from the following add-on options:
- Cover for unforeseen interruptions to public services and telephone connections.
- Cover for damage that has caused restricted access to your business (within 10 km).
- Cover for material damage at a supplier’s premises that prevents them from delivering goods or services.
2. Bi-me
Bi-me, also known as Business Insurance Made Easy, is an insurance provider that has built a free tool that allows you to calculate how much financial loss your business can experience if it stops operations for 12 months. The calculator asks for the following information:
- Expected 12-month sales (turnover)
- Expected closing stock
- Opening stock
- Expected 12-month stock purchases
- Expected uninsured costs
3. First for Women
First for Women is South Africa’s first insurance provider designed specifically for women. With First for Women, you can receive a free, no-obligation business interruption cover quote. Their business insurance covers damage to your premises, liability claims, or damage to equipment.
You can personalise your cover to ensure that in the event of a business interruption, your operations will remain uninterrupted, or at the very least, have the capability to rebuild. You can also benefit from cash-back rewards when you’ve had four uninterrupted years.
Determine How Much Cover You Need
It can be tricky to determine how much coverage your business would need in the event of an unforeseen interruption, such as a natural disaster or fire. You should ideally go for the maximum amount needed to recover your business.
If you’re calculating cover for the property of your business, use this approach. If the business property is worth R300 000, the assumption is that the damage might not cover the entire property; thus, you’d choose cover for R150 000.
Interruption insurance isn’t always due to a natural disaster. Another example includes a fire breaking out due to recurring power outages that have damaged your electrical systems.
