Preparing for the Worst
As part of your insurance coverage, you should have a disaster recovery plan. If a fire burns down your home-based business, what's your first step? Will you even have the phone number of your insurance agent at hand? Do any clients or vendors need to be notified? And if your roof leaks, exposing valuable inventory to water damage, what are your local storage alternatives?
You need to take all reasonable precautions to protect yourself, your business, and your customers. In the event of a disaster, you also need to do whatever you can to mitigate — reduce — the damages (such as moving furniture or office records to higher ground if there's a flood threat).
If you can imagine the worst-case scenario ahead of time and consider your options, you'll be much better off if a disaster actually occurs. Take the time to develop a disaster recovery plan: identify key information such as accounting records, client lists, and major written projects, and then copy the information and store it off-site in a safe deposit box or with a friend. Take videos or photos of office equipment and inventory samples and store them off site, too. If you have employees, make them part of the planning so that they know their roles and can be as helpful as possible during the crisis.
