Ensuring Resilience in a Storm: Climate change is impacting Hawaii. Is your business prepared and protected? - Hawaii Business Magazine
Ensuring Resilience in a Storm: Climate change is impacting Hawaii. Is your business prepared and protected? - Hawaii Business Magazine
Ensuring Resilience in a Storm: Climate change is impacting Hawaii. Is your business prepared and protected?
Hawaii business owners are grappling with the impact climate change and severe weather could have on future operations. What proactive steps can businesses take to help ensure a stable recovery after a disaster?
Prepare Your Business for Climate Change Impacts
1. Complete a risk assessment of property that includes engineering inspections and appraisals. Annual inspections will help identify potential issues and valuation deficiencies. An inspection can also help business owners mitigate and fix maintenance issues proactively and reduce damage from a disaster.
2. Upgrade and maintain facilities and equipment consistently to strengthen resilience to unpredictable changes in climate. Hawaii is prone to hurricanes and severe winds. Keeping up with roof structure and plumbing maintenance (i.e., fixing leaks quickly) is vital to ensure your business can better weather a storm. Additionally, consider the growing risk of wildfires and incorporate fire-resistant materials into your building’s framework where possible.
3. Make sure insurance coverage is current and adequately covers potential losses in case of disaster. Consider adding hurricane and flood coverage to your property insurance, regardless of your location’s risk level, to protect against losses from unpredictable climate events. Additionally, opt for business income coverage to safeguard against income loss during closures caused by severe weather or other climate-related incidents.
4. Protect your employees by implementing a phone tree or other contact system to alert them when your business is closed or closing due to expected dangerous conditions. Such conditions can be from impending weather events, wildfires or tsunamis.
5. Regularly communicate with your insurance agent to ensure your coverage meets your needs, addresses potential risks, and fits your budget. With severe weather events increasing, it’s important to consider the benefits of insurance as part of your risk mitigation strategy.
Photo: courtesy of Island Insurance
Island Insurance’s local experts have been there for Hawaii for more than 80 years, including through difficult times. Please contact an Island Insurance agent today if you have questions about your insurance protection.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”