For those of you who dont have the privelige of living here in Geelong, there was recently a fire in an industrial factory that destroyed six businesses. How many of those businesses had insurance? Well in percentage terms it was exactly 0%.

If you are in business, you must be insured. Yes the payments are all an expense we could do without but losing everything and having to start with nothing is an experience that should be avoided.

I am also astounded every summer when there is a bushfire and homes are destroyed and not insured. Where is the risk management? I am a big beleiver in having as much insurance cover as you can afford. Surely it is better to pay and not have to claim, rather than not paying and not having it when yiou need it most. The same goes for life and health insurance.

Tony

Incredible.. 0% wow... what were they thinking!

Amazing.

How can you not have insurance?

Mine is not very expensive, i have public liability and basically fire and theft type insurance on the office.

Cheap peace of mind

Bren

Tony that's a painful story to hear.

My input on this is over on my site in this article:

Do you back up your business?

Do you?

I as yet don't have my own business, but cannot understand how you could not insure it. I know how much hard work has gone into just putting together a business plan (still not complete!) and there is no way I would consider not having insurance. I have absolutely no intention of letting all the hard work done to date be for nothing. Unless of course the business just isn't viable, but that's a different situation. Is it something these people forget, or are they trying to cut costs? I believe the risk of something happening far outweighs the cost of insurance and if you can't afford the insurance, maybe the business isn't working out. Is this the opinion of a naive person who has never been in business or am I on the right track?

Its often a matter of cost, its seen as a want to not a must do for many businesses.

I once worked for a guy that asked the insurance guy to come in and explain what he was covered for in his policy, for 2 HRS! they went through the WHOLE document and pulled it to pieces, it turned out that all the things the guy wanted covered, were not covered. So he cancelled the policy.

SO make sure the policy you get coveres what you need it to cover.

There is also 'self insurance'

A mate of mine worked as a rep for a big national, the cars were 'self insured', meaning that the cost of insuring the whole fleet was more than just paying for accidents as they went.

Probably ok for a large business, can't see it working for a small - med.

Bren