Running a business is inherently risky. Many factors outside the control of the business owner can influence the success or failure of the enterprise and a high percentage of new businesses fail within a few months of inception. Even large and successful businesses can succumb to changing conditions. Consider what has happened to some of the largest companies in industries such as automobiles, telecommunications, computers, and railroads. To improve the probability of success, the management of a business should think about potential risks and how to offset them.

The losses to a business caused by increased expenses or decreased revenues could threaten the livelihood of the owner or owners. A realistic analysis of the risks inherent in the business and a plan for dealing with them will protect the business from unanticipated losses and disruptions to its flow of income.

Risk analysis is a process by which you consider all possible risks and determine which are the most significant for your particular business. It may make sense to mitigate some risks by purchasing insurance. Other risks can be eliminated without purchasing insurance. After considering how likely various losses are to occur, how expensive they are to mitigate and how much money you have to spend, you decide the optimum strategy for dealing with the various risks.

The size of the company, type of industry, type of organizational structure, capitalization, geographical area, management team, degree of experience and expertise in the targeted business, capitalization, competitive environment and many other factors can have a bearing on the risk environment for the company. The business owners should address such issues in their business and strategic analyses of the company’s situation. A few of the potential operational risks are as follows:

1. Risk of Property Damage

   Risk of Inventory Loss or Damage (through spoilage, etc.)
2. Risk of Loss from Employee Theft
3. Risk from Various Liabilities (including injuries to customers or to others)
4. Risk from Errors and Omissions Liabilities
5. Business interruption Risks

Other risks involve the business’s employees and may call for optional or mandatory insurance coverage:

1. Worker’s compensation
2. Unemployment
3. Employee benefits

Some additional risks relate to the owners and their ability to continue the business in the event of serious losses.

1. Risk of death of an owner or key employee
2. Risk of disability of an owner or key employee.

The primary ways of dealing with risk include:

1. Find ways to avoid risks such as eliminating potentially hazardous products or procedures
2. Reduce the frequency or severity of risks that cannot be eliminated
3. Transfer the risk to an insurance company (or perhaps to another party by means of legal agreements that your business will be “held harmless”).

A review should be done periodically. Once a year might be appropriate for many businesses. Many insurance premiums come due or up for reevaluation annually. That would be a good time to consider any changes in your risk analysis. You should also consider a review whenever you business:

1. gets larger or smaller
2. changes its nature as when it diversifies into new businesses or markets or products
3. relocates
4. anytime your business evolves in any way that could change your risk profile.

The type of organization can have a bearing on the degree to which you are personally liable for obligations of the business.

Unincorporated Businesses:

Unincorporated businesses are by far the most common type of business.

The three basic forms of unincorporated business enterprises are:

1. Proprietorships (easiest to form and terminate). This is the most common form of business enterprise. Most proprietorships are small. The proprietor faces the greatest risk exposure of any business owner since the business and personal assets of the proprietor are legally indistinguishable – as are business and personal debts. Business misfortune can cause personal financial distress.
2. Partnerships. State laws lay out the legal principles that govern these. Allows for additional input of expertise or capital or time. General partners of businesses also have essentially unlimited exposure.
3. Limited-liability companies. These are the fastest growing form of company. They allow limited liability, flexibility of partnership taxation, and are attractive to people who desire to be limited partners (with limited liability) and supply investment capital, but not become involved in the active management of the company. A variation of this is the registered limited liability partnership which operates as a normal general partnership and offers liability protection for all partners.

Incorporated Businesses:

The corporation is another form of business organization. A corporation exists as a legal entity separate and apart from its owners. It is created under the laws of the various states. Advantages of the corporate form include limited liability, continuity of life, and various tax advantages. Corporations range from small scale to very large. Very large corporations usually have a department that manages the various aspects of risk planning and business and insurance planning. Corporations are taxed as separate taxpayers with rates different from those applicable to individuals. These tax considerations affect some aspects of insurance planning for corporations.

Corporations can be one of two general types (C corporation – the ordinary type, or S Corporation – which has a different type of taxation)

In today’s business world, your computer data constitutes a key asset – perhaps more valuable than many of your tangible items such as buildings or vehicles. So safeguarding data and data processing assets are crucial success factors.

Many data related risks can be greatly reduced by non-insurance steps. For example a carefully designed program of backing up data frequently and dispersing data processing and records in widely separated locations can avoid many of disruptions caused by natural disasters (hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, etc.) or by area-wide disruptions of communication or electric power and even terrorist attacks. If such events do occur, the redundancy and dispersion should make it possible to recover your operations quickly in most situations.

Archived data should also be maintained in secure locations. If you do not have the capability of securing such records, you might want to consider using the services of outside companies that store your valuable records in secure, carefully controlled, remote locations such as special warehouses or underground mines.

And security of customers’ private information is increasingly important to give customers the confidence to use your products and/or services. So you need to consider what information security risks you have and how to eliminate them.

These are areas where you might find preventive actions to be preferable to insurance and remediation.

The cost is dependent on the specifics of your business situation. You can probably reduce the cost by shopping around. There are many companies providing business coverages and competing for your business.

Many small to medium size businesses may be able to save money by considering packaged coverage instead of purchasing a lot of individual policies for the different risks.

The insurance company has to pay for the cost of the coverages provided to the insured businesses. The predictability of these costs will vary based on the type of coverage. Some losses are immediately apparent (e.g. fires) while others take years to become final (e.g. court judgments for liability coverages). Various expenses, such as getting customers and administrative costs of running the business must also be paid. Investment returns on premium dollars not yet spent add to the available funds to pay these expenses. Insurance companies judge all these and other factors including competitive forces, the legal environment, the investment returns likely to be earned for some years in the future. Then they set rates that make for a profitable operation, subject to regulation by the insurance departments.

Some types of package coverages such as business owner’s policies are underwritten by class of policies rather than as individual companies. If your business fits in a certain classification the whole group of businesses in that class is underwritten together so that rates are set for all of them rather than considering each individual company. This leads to more efficient underwriting and helps to keep the rates low if your business meets the requirements to be accepted in one of the classifications. It also means that such policies have less flexibility than you would have if you purchased individual policies for each type of coverage.

As with other potentially risky aspects of life, insurance can help by taking risks faced by many policy owners and pooling them so as to compensate the ones who sustain substantial losses. Pooling of risks works because what is unpredictable for an individual business is much more predictable for a large group of businesses. If your building burns down or is burglarized, the money the insurance company collects from its policy holders plus what it earns from its investments is used to offset your losses. People who do not suffer losses but have paid their premiums have the assurance that if they suffer insured losses the company will do the same for them.

A business owner’s policy (BOP) is the best choice for many small to medium size businesses if they can qualify and if the limitations and types of coverages fit their needs. Some specific additional policies may be purchased to supplement the BOP coverages if needed.

Basic liability coverages such as provided in business owners’ policies may be adequate in many cases, But if you are in a business or profession where there is an especially high risk of lawsuits (some branches of medicine for example) you may need extra protection

A business can be crippled by the death of a partner, because the partnership is effectively ended by the death and needs to be reconstituted with the remaining partners and any new participants. But the interests of the deceased partner need to be bought out, just at a time when the business may be badly damaged by the loss of a critical member of the team and funds may not be available to pay for the deceased’s ownership interests.

A buy/sell agreement is a legal document that binds business partners to buy out the interest of a deceased partner at terms that are predetermined so as to allow the business to continue to be run by the remaining partners. The agreement is funded by life insurance policies on each of the partners with proceeds to be paid to the business for disposition according to the terms of the agreement. It is important that the agreement be carefully drafted by attorneys experienced in how to meet the exact requirements of the organization in question.

Similar arrangements may protect against long term disabilities that can sideline one of the main players in the business. A disability policy can provide needed funds in the event of such an incident and buy out interests of someone who will not be able to return to the business for a long period of time.

Disability income protection can also contribute to paying overhead expenses when an owner is incapacitated.

Suppose you are trying to meet an important deadline for a key customer when a disastrous, unforeseen event takes place putting your ability to complete the job in jeopardy. An example would be when the indispensable person who heads up the project becomes ill or is hospitalized.

Much publicized events such as this have happened in the entertainment industry when a hurricane destroys a set for a movie or a film or stage star becomes sick or dies suddenly. It is obvious that the unexpected can have severe financial consequences. Some businesses use business interruption insurance to offset this.

Most businesses with employees will need to purchase worker’s compensation coverage. While details vary from state to state, there are generally requirements mandated by state law and the coverage is purchased through an insurance broker.

A business owner’s policy (BOP) has been compared to a homeowner's policy for business. BOPs were first developed in the 1970s and have become a very popular form of insurance for small to medium sized businesses. BOPs combine some of the basic coverages needed by a typical small business into a standard package at a premium that is generally less than would be required to purchase these coverages separately. Business owners also like the simplified nature of the package as opposed to buying a collection of small policies. The efficiency also appeals to insurance companies and allows them to offer a lower premium for the package.

A similar packaged product is also available for farmers.

Most of the coverages that are needed by small and medium sized businesses, with the exception of auto and worker’s compensation, are generally included. This not only simplifies the process of buying the basic insurance coverages, but often gives a lower premium for businesses that qualify for a BOP. Business owner’s policies basically consist of property coverage, liability coverage and some additional types of coverage that most businesses require. Optional coverages can also be added to meet specific needs of the business.

Typically a BOP policy includes:

1. Property insurance (covering buildings, equipment and inventory).
2. Business interruption insurance (covering losses that cause you to shut operations or reduce production for a time). Business interruption insurance can provide money to offset lost profits or to pay continuing expenses (typically for up to a year for insured losses).
3. Casualty or liability protection (covering harm done by the employees or products to other people or their property).
4. Crime insurance (covering loss of money or securities resulting from burglaries or robberies or destruction) as well as losses from employee theft or embezzlement.
5. Liability insurance covering lawsuits arising from accidents (as when someone trips and falls on your business’s property) or when you sell a product that damages the customer’s property or you are accused of offenses such as slander, copyright or invasion of privacy.
6. Vehicle coverage for rented or borrowed vehicles.

A number of other coverages such as flood insurance or earthquake insurance or owned vehicle coverage and specialized liabilities are generally not included in POBs. Some of these may be available separately for extra premiums.

One of the distinguishing features of BOPs is that most automatically include business income and extra expense coverage (subject to some limitations).