When low pressure weather systems draw upon warm water and atmospheric moisture, it’s a recipe for tropical disaster: a powerful and very damaging hurricane. The impact of such natural events certainly reaches businesses on land, with power outages, property damages, supply chain delays and more, potentially halting business. And the sad reality: natural disasters are only getting stronger and more frequent.

Recent hurricane seasons have brought on some of the most destructive storms in history. Last year, Hurricane Florence caused an estimated $24 billion in damage across three states and resulted in 52 deaths. The year before, Hurricanes Harvey and Irma caused tens of billions of dollars in damage while devastating the Gulf Coast and Puerto Rico.

With the number of tropical storms that turn into powerful hurricanes tripling over the past 30 years, businesses need to be ready. Integrated risk management (IRM) is the best way to protect against the growing impact of natural disasters and speed claims processing and business continuity planning after an event.

 

IRM: The supersized umbrella your business needs.
Most businesses will feel the effect of a natural disaster at some point. Even if a company doesn’t operate in an area prone to hurricanes and tropical storms, indirect impacts of other natural events, like volcanic ash that grounds planes, could mean that employees aren’t able to get to important business meetings, or the delivery of critical product supply sources are delayed.

IRM helps companies manage the impact of such events by sending automated alerts that use geocoding technology to assist risk, safety and emergency planning professionals in monitoring natural disaster situations as they develop. Taking into consideration an organization’s locations or properties, key vendors, means of transport, personnel and other important factors, the system can match a disruptive event’s location with any assets that might be in harm’s way and trigger risk managers to take protective action and implement contingency plans, depending on the situation.

The approach can also help businesses speed up and streamline the claims process in wake of an event, leaving one less thing for organizations to worry about in the aftermath of damage and disruption. The system provides a single record for any item related to a specific claim — even important emails – and stores it all within a centralized place alongside all other risk, claims and policy data. This means a claim’s status and payment processing can be easily monitored and accessed, alleviating headaches common in the wake of natural disasters.

By tracking and managing all properties, property values, COPE information and property recommendations in one place, adopting an IRM strategy ensures an auditable and accurate record is on hand when filing a claim. And if you add insurance policy management capabilities to your risk management solution, it can quickly access policy information such as policy date, coverage, carrier, broker, pro-rata share, aggregate and occurrence limits, and deductibles, which enables you to make precise projections about the natural event’s impact on business and the cash needed to cover damages.

 

Don’t wait until disaster strikes.
If the last few are any indication, businesses can expect a lively hurricane season this year. As natural disasters become more frequent and grow in potential impact, it’s more important now than ever before to be prepared in managing an event and avoid significant financial and operational consequences.

Whatever natural disaster your company’s location and assets are prone to – hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, snowstorms, volcanic ash or otherwise – IRM is on your side to ensure the business can continue forward in the best way possible. Whether you need more support before a risk event, with automated alerts to keep you informed on developing situations, or after the event with streamlined claims processing and business continuity planning, adopting an integrated approach to risk management can help quell fears surrounding natural disaster risk.

Learn more about integrated risk management today so that your organization can continue to thrive through this year’s hurricane season.