What To Do If Your Small Business Is Robbed

After working hard to grow your small business, getting robbed can come as a shock to the system. Whether it’s property theft or cash being taken directly on site, it could place you in major financial jeopardy within a few short hours.

It’s typically more fortunate if a robbery happens off-hours. When it does, it prevents any possible threat to human life, like customers or employees. Then again, you never know when a robbery might occur in broad daylight. We all know it can happen to any business and not just financial institutions.

When a robbery does occur, you may feel stunned about how to proceed. The important thing is to call police first. Then you’ll want to look at your insurance policies to see what’s covered.

What Kind of Property Insurance Do You Have?

A robbery might leave more than just stolen items missing. The thieves who broke in perhaps damaged your property as well. Maybe they destroyed an interior door to gain access to a safe, or trashed your business just to wreak havoc.

These damages could cost you even more than the inventory losses you experienced. Having commercial property insurance is going to help you out of this jam. In most cases, property insurance policies help with damage to furniture and your inventory.

While you’ll incur a deductible here, a comprehensive commercial property insurance plan gets you back on your feet quickly. This might include your entire building if the thieves did extensive damage to the exterior as well as interior.

Liability Insurance in Case of Injuries

The dreaded scenario of someone being injured or killed during a robbery is likely a recurring nightmare. Liability insurance is a must in these scenarios to help in case you receive a lawsuit.

Commercial general liability insurance is one of the best policies for this because of its comprehensibility. It covers not only property damage, but also helps when dealing with injuries on your property. You’ll want this insurance when going through the pressures of fighting lawsuits.

What About Business Interruption Insurance?

Robberies definitely cause troubling interruptions in your business. Due to the property damage mentioned above, you may have to shut down for several weeks.

Business interruption insurance is going to help you through with typically three steps. They’ll help you with income you’ve lost during the interruption. Also, they’ll help you deal with expenses you’ve accrued while shut down. And many policy providers additionally offer payroll coverage so you can continue paying your employees during inactive time.

Having a policy like this helps you prepare for the ripple effects typically caused from just one robbery.

Crime Insurance

It’s possible to find insurance policies directly under the crime category. While you should try to make your insurance as comprehensive as you can afford for all possibilities, crime insurance is one to consider first.

Most policies here are going to help you recover financially if you experience a financial loss due to theft. They also help in cases where you experience inside theft from employees.

The latter is one to take seriously since it happens far too often. Another thing to take seriously is cyber theft being just as prevalent as a physical robbery. Many general liability policies don’t cover cyber crime, so you may need a separate cyber theft policy.

Even though you may have safeguards to withstand robberies, always expect the unexpected, since nothing is completely fail-safe in today’s world.

Dan Levenson

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