Disaster Planning Tools

The following online tools and resources offered through the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety are designed to help reduce the potential for loss should disaster strike your business.

Open for Business

Open for Business, from the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, is a comprehensive interactive disaster planning toolkit. The easy-to-use website helps business owners reduce the potential for loss should disaster strike, and reopen quickly if they are forced to close. This creates a savings for the business and also benefits the employees and customers who rely on it.

Open for Business includes an assessment tool that helps the business determine its susceptibility to natural disasters wherever it has facilities and provides information to minimize damage. The toolkit also includes materials to help businesses organize critical information and review essential operations, both of which lead to development of a continuity plan. Open for Business is available in a print version and a web-based version.

Know Your Risks

No matter where you live, natural hazards exist that could significantly damage or even destroy your home or business. However, the severity and specific types of risks vary considerably by geographic region. Visit the IBHS site to enter your ZIP code and discover what risks are most likely to affect you.

Business Continuity Training

Because preparing for a disaster can be a daunting task for time-strapped entrepreneurs, the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety has designed a free e-learning series to maximize the time and budgets of small and mid-sized business owners. The training breaks the process of creating a business continuity and disaster recovery plan into eight modules that provide hands-on instruction. Users can register their email address to track their progress and create automatic reminders that will help them complete their plan.

Loss Control Help

More information about business continuity planning can be found in the Disaster Planning section of our Loss Prevention Information Manual. For more information on any of these loss control services, contact your local EMC branch office.