Being able to insure the valuable papers related to your business is not a new aspect of business insurance policies. It has been around for quite some time, but like everything else in this age of technological advancements, it has evolved and improved upon significantly. Instead of just referring to printed documents, it now includes all types of media, printed, digital and electronic.
When determining how much insurance you need on the valuable papers that you have it is very difficult to attach a monetary value to them. That is because, while they are essential to the operation of your business, they have no value outside of this circumstance. They can include your deeds, bills and expenses, ledgers and financial information that you need to help you prepare your taxes. While you can probably obtain copies of all the documents you lose in the destruction or vandalism of your business, it will take time and money to obtain the copies from the many different sources.
In order to put a value on the papers for insurance purposes, you have to consider how you would be able to retrieve the valuable papers. How much employee time would this take and would you have to hire extra staff for this purpose? While you may be looking at the cost per hour at the time you take out the insurance, keep in mind that wages are rising so in order to have enough money to pay a person to retrieve the information you do have to allow for rising costs in the amount of coverage you take out.
Will you have to purchase additional equipment in order to retrieve the valuable papers or need an extra secure storage for the new ones? This is an aspect of the policy that you have to consider in terms of the cost. Depending on the type and nature of the valuable papers, there may be consultants involved in the retrieval process and this can get quite costly.
While insurance providers do offer this type of business insurance, they will also want to know what steps you are willing to take to help minimize the risk and therefore enjoy a lower rate of premiums on your policy. You should always make duplicate copies of all your paper work, either through Xerox machine or by keeping a record on a floppy disk rather than leaving all your information on the hard drive of your computer. The second copy should be stored in another location so that if your building is destroyed you still have copies ready and available.
When working on the computer, you should back up your work on a frequent basis and make the number of copies that you need of documents that you consider to be valuable and essential to your business. When you have a copy stored on site, it should be in a secure and fireproof location.