What's on your inside?

Last night, my wife and I took our 17-year old daughter shopping for work clothes for her trip to Mexico on an Interact project to help a school be rebuilt. We decided to go to Goodwill to pick up some inexpensive clothes that she could feel free to ruin.

As they were shopping, I decided to browse around the men's clothes. To my shock, I found two suits that were as good as new on the rack. They were both beautiful and made by high end clothiers - Jos. A Banks and Tommy Hilfiger. The cost - $20 each! I tried them on, I looked for the "red dot" (remember that infamous Seinfeld episode), or anything that would make me not want to purchase them. Nothing!

The bottom line, the cost of the suits plus a little tailoring will come to less than half what I would pay anywhere else. The moral of the story? Don't always accept that what you see on the outside isn't very different inside. My original thought that this was just Goodwill, turned into an opportunity to buy quality products for virtually nothing.

What about your insurance policy? It comes in a neat, beautiful binder with your name handsomely stated on the front. It looks good; your agent says its good; and for all you know it's the perfect fit. But what's going on inside? You need to make sure that what you are actually paying for is what you need in a disaster.

Just like me taking the outside of Goodwill for granted, you can do the same with your insurance. Make sure that the inside of your policy, not the shiny cover is what really fits your business.

Dan

Agility Recovery Solutions

You have probably heard me warn about the dangers of not having a business continuation plan in place. If you haven't, now is a time to take notice. Regardless of your size, if you don't have a plan to keep your business alive in the hours and days after a devastating loss, you may not be able to get back in business even with insurance.

I'm proud to be associated with Agility Recovery Solutions because unlike insurance, if you have a disaster, they will be there without worrying about whether it's a covered peril like earthquake or flood.

There is an excellent webinar coming up on April 3 to help you understand the program more. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. Here is the information on the webinar...

INSURANCE JOURNAL WEBCAST WITH AGILITY RECOVERY

Join us for: "Business Continuity and the Independent Agent. Lessons learned from real world recoveries."

Date: April 3, 2008
Time: 10:00AM PT / 1:00PM ET

How to avoid a disaster, after a disaster. Get real-world insight into disaster recovery and business continuity. Bob Boyd, CEO of Agility Recovery, and several independent agents will dispel the myths about business continuity and disaster recovery.Agility will outline a few simple steps your agency and your clients can take today to prepare for tomorrow.

Click here to register: http://www.insurancejournal.com/webcasts/register.php?w=46

You've worked too hard to build your business. Make sure you've taken the time to protect it and yourself.

Dan

Ergonomics - Don't be a pian in the neck!

First of all, my apologies for my lack of blogging lately...I will be more consistent.

Yesterday, one of my associates, Tim Longley from e-Office Innovations, gave a great presentation on ergonomics. If you have employees that spend most of their day sitting behind a computer, you have a serious exposure to workers compensation issues. Here's why:

• 50% of all workers compensation claims in the United States come from computer-related injuries. Does that scare you? It should. Especially with more and more workers being able to do their jobs from home on laptops, this statistic may even go up.
  
• Employees who are in pain from sitting behind a desk improperly are not as efficient as you would hope. Productivity goes down when people are hurt and can't work to their optimum output. You may say, "They don't act like their hurting." No, but you can imagine with the amount of repetitive strain, i.e. typing sitting, scrolling, etc., that they may be damaging themselves and not even know it.
• You may be required by some governmental agency to get your act together or else. That can be very costly.

Look - the bottom line is that you want your employees to be safe and injury free. You want them to produce at their best capability and have fun at work. You also don't want to pay exorbinent workers compensation premiums. You need to develop a game plan for ergonomics.

If you need help, please feel free to contact Tim Longley at 206-842-4840 or visit his web site by clicking here.

Dan

P.S. Next week, my teleconference will feature Jon Newman from Agility Recovery Solutions. You will learn strategies to stay in business after a disaster hits. This call may just save your business! To register, click here now.