Anthony Charles Scs Agency | Anthony Charles Scs Insurance – SCS Insurance Inc

The “CEO’s” Corner

Written by Anthony W. Charles President /CEO of SCS Insurance Agency

SCS insurance agency is well known insurance broker in Great Neck NY.  Anthony Charles the CEO of SCS agency has good experience in the field of Commercial, Personal, Life as well as Financial Services.

I would like to start a conversation with clients and associates. The topic is Disaster Recovery and how it relates to your business.

Most owners as well as managers of companies we do business with have heard the term.

When asked the question as to why a plan has not been put into place I hear multiple reasons .The two most repeated objections are we do not know where to start and we do not have an exposure so why would we waste time and financial recourses.

The reality is that the world has changed and the question is how you can afford not to have a plan in place.

The plan covers critical recourses of your business. These include your physical plant and inventory, market share which translates to revenue and human capital.

These areas drive the numbers that make up your financial statement. So again I ask how you can afford not to put a plan in place.

In the northeast we now have experienced a blizzard, earthquake, a tropical storm and flooding. All of these disasters occurred in one year.

So let’s talk about how to start;

The first step is to do a Preparedness Evaluation. This is a review to help you identify the exposures that are unique to your business.

Areas include the following:

Do I have a team in place? As simple as the questions sounds the answer is not yes or no. The real question is which employees in the company should be involved in the process.

Once the team is in place the first topic of discussion is to identify possible business interruptions that would affect your company.

The next topic is who is responsible for each area that is identified as an exposure.

Now that you have identified exposures you need to review the following areas;

1. Do we have an evacuation plan in place to deal with a disaster?
2. Is my facility wired for and outside power source such as a generator?
3. Do we have a contingency plan for temporary space to operate our business while our space is being repaired?
4. Do we have a plan in place to retrieve data and set up IT.?
5. Do we have remote access set up for our employees?
6. Do we have a communication plan in place.

These are some of the questions to start the process. I have attached a questionnaire with a rating scale from 1 to 10. (One being the highest priority)

The key is to not be overwhelmed but to start a dialogue.

My next discussion will focus on developing plans for specific events that affect the ability for your business to function.

Anthony Charles SCS Insurance