Business has picked up at data recovery services, insurance brokers and loss prevention consultancies across the nation over the past few weeks, as images of flooded and destroyed Gulf Coast companies have made many small business owners uneasy about their own disaster preparedness.
At LiveVault, a data backup and recovery company in Marlborough, Mass., orders doubled around the time Hurricane Katrina hit in late August, CEO Bob Cramer said.
“A lot of people found us on the Web and called us frantically. They rapidly put orders through and begged us to get them up and running,” Cramer said.
Many small business owners began thinking about contracting with a remote data backup service to protect their computer data after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Cramer said. But many never signed up with a provider until they were unnerved by Katrina’s devastation.
VeriCenter Inc., a Houston-based information technology company with seven data backup centers around the U.S., also saw an uptick in business, co-founder Dave Colesante said. He’s found that many customers have been motivated to start tapping into money set aside for disaster preparation that went unused until now.
“Katrina caused a lot of people to actually engage and force their IT staff to make the leap into the disaster-recovery world,” he said.
Insurance brokers have also been getting more phone calls and e-mails.
George Yates, president of Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of New York, in East Hampton, said his firm has been getting calls from businesses wondering whether their insurance includes flood coverage. For many owners, the answer is no – flood insurance has to be purchased separately from a standard business policy – and so Yates’ company has been selling more coverage for floods.
The video and photographs of stranded people in New Orleans also prompted small business owners to think about some more mundane disaster preparation items. Be Ready Inc., an Oceanside, Calif., company, has seen increased demand for products such as its 72-hour kit, which has water, food bars, a first-aid kit, a solar radio, a flashlight and other items, and for its water-filtration products.
Jim Fry, a partner in Be Ready, said of business owners, “Just in case people are at work, they want to be sure their employees are taken care of.”
Fry said he’s also gotten more requests for disaster preparation seminars.
Intellicomm Inc. CEO Harprit Singh said his Philadelphia-based company has gotten calls about its service, which allows businesses to set up a phone system remotely. He said Intellicomm tends to hear from companies when they are in trouble, after a disaster, but he’s had calls from others who have started planning ahead.
But people who provide disaster preparation services still see many potential customers not taking steps to protect their businesses. Cramer, the LiveVault CEO, has already seen some apathy setting in.
And Mike Lebovitz, vice president of Affiliated FM, a Johnston, R.I., property insurance firm, said many small businesses make the mistake of thinking that insurance – not disaster preparation – is what matters.
“Insurance should be the last part of that equation,” he said. “Now is the time to think about planning.”
Building Small Business is a weekly column on the topic by the Associated Press.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
