by Jen Hickey. Small business owners are usually well acquainted with risk. After all, starting a business is one of life’s most momentous decisions and often requires a leap into the unknown. However, you can improve the odds for your business by identifying those risks early on and devising a plan to eliminate or minimize their impact. While it’s probably not healthy to think about all that could go wrong, asking “What if?” when it comes to every aspect of your business is key to its...

Insurance is often an overlooked priority for small businesses due to cost considerations and the complexity of the coverage landscape. Different types of insurance have confusingly similar names.  Your state, town, or county may have its own insurance requirements and many industries have coverage specific to them. In fact, the Insurance Information Institute estimates that about 40 percent of small business owners carry no insurance whatsoever. All enterprises need to protect themselves...

Don't be catch unprepared for the worst case scenario By Chris Freeburn A small business's survival can mean more than weathering the economy's ups and downs, or attracting consumer interest. Sometimes it means recovering from disaster. That disaster can come in the form of a fire that rips through your office, or the building housing it, a flood that soaks the business district in which your company is located, or a tornado or hurricane that batters your city. Such calamities can leave your...

With costs rising in every category, insurance again tops the list of small-business woes. By Reed Richardson But carriers and small businesses can lessen the pain by getting creative. When Benjamin Franklin said, "In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes," he obviously wasn't thinking about running a small business. If he had, insurance would have been right up there. Many small-business owners treat insurance as a necessary evil, the annual visit to their agent ranking just...