Discover Vintage America — October 2011
Is your business protected?
As many of you know, Hurricane Irene trashed a good portion of my home state of Vermont, where hurricanes are almost unheard of. The storm took out residences, decimated entire business districts, and washed out about 240 roads – a lot of damage for a state the size of Vermont. This serves as a reminder on how vulnerable we humans are to natural disasters. (Just ask the folks in Joplin, MO.).
Fire is also fairly common as disasters go. A few years ago,
a large, popular multi-dealer shop in Central New Hampshire burned to the
ground from causes unknown, in the dead of a winter night so cold the water
from hoses froze before it hit the fire. The owners didn’t have insurance and
never rebuilt. Many of their uninsured dealers were displaced right along with
them.
It isn’t possible to protect your business from every disaster, but there are some things you can do to prepare for and minimize losses.
How’s your roof?
Disaster victims are sometimes criticized for building in flood plains or areas prone to fire, but it’s pretty hard to say folks shouldn’t build where it snows. Our nation’s Snow Belt girds a massive section of the country from the Northeast to the Northwest, including the broad girth of the Midwest. One of the biggest worries in rural winters is the barn roof. Every winter, roofs collapse – some with livestock under them – after years of heavy snow and ice build-up that weakens aging timbers.
Many antique shops are also located in rustic older buildings, architecture apt for the business conducted therein. For the trade, then, the question “how’s your roof?” is at once literal and a metaphor for any number of structural weaknesses in an old building. When’s the last time you had the electrical wiring checked for wear and tear? How adequate is your fire alarm/protection, assuming you have such a system?
How’s your landlord?
Many (perhaps most) dealers try to reduce their overhead by not owning the venue(s) in which they do
business. Usually, that would mean renting space. The question this begs is how
well the landlord maintains the building and whether or not he/she has
insurance on it.
Another potential disaster involving rented space is having the landlord go bankrupt, sell or repurpose the building for some other use, or otherwise refuse to renew the lease. If you rent, whether it’s a display case in a multi-dealer shop or the entire building, how dependent is your business on the space in which it currently resides? Do you have a contingency plan in case your landlord decides to bail?
How’s your insurance?
General business insurance often won’t cover specific losses, for which you’ll need specific insurance riders. There are lots of reasons businesses are uninsured or underinsured. And you may feel as if you’re wasting money when you pay premiums against disasters that may never come. Even when you can get fire and/or flood insurance (not always possible in areas known to be prone to these problems), it can seem prohibitively expensive.
Still, even if you can’t insure the business for its whole worth, some insurance is better than none at all. Theft is one of the likelier disasters to hit the trade. Are you insured at least for that? If this or any other disaster hits your business, what would you need for a grubstake to get you back up and running again? If you can’t insure the building, can you at least insure your inventory?
The insurance market is pretty competitive, so shop around if you don’t like the answers you receive from the first agent. Be careful also to check the reliability of the insurer. It does no good to hook up with an “affordable” insurer if it has a record of stonewalling on claims.
How’s your emergency
plan?
Maybe your business is located on high ground and is the most disaster-proof building in town – in which case, lucky you! But what would be the impact of extended power or phone outages on your business, and can you plan now to minimize the disruption? What if the road to and from your town were washed out – as just happened to several towns in Southern Vermont after Hurricane Irene tore through them? What would be the impact on your customer traffic, and can you insulate yourself against the worst effects by, for example, temporarily shifting more of your business online?
Most of us have answered the question, “What would you take with you from your house if it was on fire and you could only save three things?” For the trade, the question should be more than just a mental exercise. In the event of a disaster, what inventory would you want to evacuate from the shop (assuming you could do so without endangering your own safety)?
Disaster preparedness means anticipating possible circumstances and planning your responses in advance. Don’t wait to figure it out when you see that dark funnel outside your shop window.
Peggy Whiteneck is a writer and collector living in East Randolph, VT. If you would like to suggest a topic she can address in her column, email her at allwrite@sover.net.