With little or no warning, another Hurricane Isabel could have devastated your business. Natural and man-made disasters can wreak massive destruction. Beyond the toll in human lives and property damage, it can halt your company's ability to maintain operations, deliver to customers, and meet shareholders' expectations.
To prepare for these critical events is a complex task involving multiple factors. Companies may know they are in a hazardous area, but may find it difficult to determine the true extent of their exposure or to gauge the impact of a natural disaster. Natural hazards such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods can have a profound impact on a business. But while such risks are unpredictable, the impact can be managed.
To keep your business alive and thriving, you need to understand the potential risks that come with such hazards and the likelihood of their occurrence. Beyond insurance, you need to know how to plan for and manage these risks.
What Will You Say When They Ask What Happened?
To better manage the impact of the natural hazard events that face your organization, senior management should be determining their preparedness and planning by considering the following questions:
- Do we clearly understand our potential losses?
- Do we know how we may be able to mitigate the financial impact of a natural hazard?
- Do we have a formal plan in place for dealing with natural or man-made disasters?
- Have we trained our employees to know what to do in an emergency?
- What are the procedures for a storm watch? A warning?
- Do we understand what to do, and how to do it, in order to ensure the safety of our personnel and our facilities?
- Do we have a plan for continuing operations if our facility is deemed unusable?
- What do we do after a hazard has past? How can we determine when it is safe to re-enter a facility?
- Do we know how to effectively communicate with employees, suppliers, customers, the media, public emergency personnel, and the general public?
- How do we minimize the impact of a hazard on our supply chain?
- Do our property and casualty policies cover us if we have a claim as a result of a natural hazard?
Who's Looking Out for You?
Using hundreds of thousands of earthquake and windstorm event simulations, Enigma's Risk Consulting practice employs state-of-the-art computer modeling techniques to identify a company's exposure. Specially trained consultants prepare a customized numerical analysis and review the data that focuses in on a client's location, or portfolio of locations, and the potential loss. Enigma consultants then analyze the impact on physical property, such as building and contents damage, and the effect on occupancy in terms of recovery time, to help clients determine their level of risk, risk tolerance, and the potential solution that could be deployed.
As part of an integrated solution, Enigma can also help clients develop emergency preparedness and disaster recovery plans to help them protect their people, physical assets, and operations — and stay in business or quickly get back to business after a natural disaster hits.
If you have any questions or would like additional information, please contact us.
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