Your business is often your primary source of income. Therefore, if you face an unplanned closure, you stand to lose out on a lot of money. Coupled with physical losses, the cost of closure might prove financially unsustainable. You might even run the risk of losing the
business. Still, if you have a Business Owners Policy, or BOP, you’ll often have protection in situations like these. Within this policy, you'll probably find business interruption insurance. How can it work to help you?
What’s Interruption Coverage?
A BOP is one of the insurance foundations for business owners. It will usually contain several common types of coverage. Within most will be business interruption coverage.
Coverage applies to the costs the business might encounter during a temporary, covered closure. It can help the business pay operational costs in place of using regular income.
Let’s say a severe storm strikes your area. It might damage your business’s roof and blow out glass in windows. You might have to close while the building receives repairs. However, stopping operations might mean losing money. Therefore, the risk of significant cost losses and other operational strains might beckon. Business interruption insurance can help in this regard. It might help you avoid digging into your operational savings unnecessarily.
How It Can Help You
In many ways, your business interruption policy acts as sustainability for your operation. Your policy might:
You’ll still have to meet operational obligations, even during a temporary closure. You might need to pay salaries, pay vendors and continue to make utility or other operational payments. With the help of your BOP, you can use interruption coverage to meet these costs. You will have a lower risk of suffering significant profit losses even during a slowdown.
Sometimes, interruption coverage might help you move the business to a temporary location. Therefore, you can stay open, even while your standard location receives substantive repairs.
If you can keep meeting your operational costs during a closure, you can reopen in a stable position. So, the long-term sustainability of the business might remain stable. Your ability to continue operations and sales unimpeded remains more assured. You thus might face a lower risk of sustaining unrecoverable losses, and potentially losing the business.
When you get a BOP, ask your agent to explain the different perks of the interruption insurance. They can help you understand when you can file a claim under this coverage.
Also Read: Why You Need Commercial General Liability Coverage