Four Most Important Questions To Check If Your Business Is Properly Insured
NEW YORK, February 19, 2008 — Today, businesses face greater risks than ever before. In addition to such typical risks as theft and fire, there are a host of other risks that are unique to each particular type of business. That’s why it is essential that businessowners make sure they buy the right type and amount of insurance and update their policies annually to include improvements, major purchases and increased rebuilding costs as well as any liability risks, according to the Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.).
“One of the biggest mistakes businessowners make is that they don’t buy the right type of insurance and often have gaps in their coverage, “ said Loretta Worters, vice president, I.I.I. “Businessowners should contact their insurance agent or company representative annually to make sure that their insurance is adequate.”
A Businessowner’s Policy (BOP) is recommended for most small businesses (usually 100 employees or less), as it is often the most affordable way to obtain broad coverage. Combining both property and liability insurance, a BOP will cover your business in the event of property damage, suspended operations, lawsuits resulting from bodily injury or property damage to others, etc.
BOPs do NOT cover professional liability, auto insurance, workers compensation or health and disability insurance, however. You’ll need separate insurance policies to cover professional services, vehicles and your employees.
For medium and larger businesses, there are more comprehensive commercial policies. To properly insure your business, the I.I.I. suggests that you ask your agent or company representative these four important questions:
1. Do I have enough insurance to rebuild my business property and replace all of my merchandise and possessions?
A Building and Personal Property Coverage (BPP) policy is commonly used to cover any combination of the following three broad categories: the building, your business personal property and the personal property of others. Usually the covered building is owned by the insured. However, a lessee might insure a leased building when required to do so by the terms of the lease.
Your Business Personal Property includes seven specific categories:
- Furniture and fixtures
- Machinery and equipment
- Stock (i.e., merchandise held in storage, including raw materials, work in-progress and finished goods)
- All other personal property owned by you and used in your business
- Labor, materials or services furnished or arranged by you on the personal property of others
- If a tenant, the improvements or betterments you have made
- Leased personal property for which you have a contractual responsibility to insure
It is vital that the values of property are accurately reported and updated annually to reflect inflation and other increases in cost.
2. Do I have enough insurance to protect the personal property of my employees?
You will need to add Personal Effects and Property of Others coverage to your policy. This coverage permits the insured to extend up to $2,500 worth of its business personal property coverage to personal effects of the insured and its officers, partners or employees and personal property of others in the insured’s care, custody or control. The personal effects coverage does not include theft, even if theft is a covered cause of loss under the policy.
If the $2,500 limit is inadequate to cover personal property to others in the insured’s possession, a higher limit can be purchased.
3. Do I have enough insurance to keep my business open?
A business that has to close down completely while the premises are being repaired may lose out to competitors. A quick resumption of business after a disaster is essential. That’s why business interruption insurance is so important.
“Make sure the policy limits are sufficient to cover your company for more than a few days,” said Worters. “After a major disaster, it can take more time than many people anticipate to get a business back on track. There is generally a 48-hour waiting period before business interruption coverage kicks in,” she added. “Too many businessowners fail to think about how they would manage if a fire or other disaster damaged their business premises so that it was temporarily unusable.”
The price of the policy is related to the risk of a fire or other disaster damaging your premises. All other things being equal, the price would probably be higher for a restaurant than a real estate agency, for example, because of the greater risk of fire. Also a real estate agency can more easily operate out of another location.
There are typically four types of business interruption insurance. You can purchase any one of these or any combination of them that would make sense for your business:
- Business income coverage – Compensates you for lost income if your company has to vacate its premises due to disaster-related damage that is covered under your property insurance policy. Business income insurance covers the profits you would have earned, based on your financial records, had the disaster not occurred. The policy also covers operating expenses, such as electricity, that continue even though business activities have come to a temporary halt.
Review your annual financial records with your accountant to determine your annual net profit (total revenue minus total expenses). You should also have an approximate idea of how much profit you make (and would therefore lose) during a typical year. Purchase enough business income coverage to cover at least this amount of revenue.)
- Extra Income Coverage – Reimburses your company for a reasonable sum of money that it spends, over and above normal operating expenses, to avoid having to shut down during the restoration period.
In order to calculate how much extra expense coverage you will need, an appraisal of your office building or any other operating locations should be made as well as a detailed inventory, not only of your product stock but also of your existing office equipment.
- Contingent business interruption insurance – Protects a businessowner’s earnings following physical loss or damage to the property of the insured’s suppliers or customers, as opposed to its own property. Companies today are heavily dependent on raw materials from key suppliers to make the products they sell. What happens if the supplier suffers a loss and cannot continue to deliver the product?
Make sure to determine how much revenue would be lost if you were unable to receive your product from your main supplier or if your main customers were unable to buy from you.
4. Do I have enough insurance to protect my assets from a lawsuit?
The only way to protect your assets is to carry adequate business liability insurance. A Commercial
General Liability (CGL) insurance policy is the first line of defense against many common claims. CGL policies cover claims in four basic categories of business liability:
- Bodily injury
- Property damage
- Personal injury (including slander or libel)
- Advertising injury
In addition to covering the claims listed above, Commercial General Liability policies also cover the cost to defend or settle claims.
For more information on how to properly insure your business, access the Insurance Information Institute’s Web site at www.iii.org
INSURANCE INFORMATION INSTITUTE
Contact: Press Offices
New York: 212-346-5500; media@iii.org
Washington, D.C.: 202-833-1580
Wipro Launches ”Upgrade-in-a-lab” Model to Save around 30% Cost of PeopleSoft Upgrade
BANGALORE, India, Feb 19, 2008 — Wipro Technologies, the global IT services business of Wipro Limited (NYSE:WIT), today announced that its EAS business unit has engaged with its key clients to upgrade their enterprise application environment using Wipro’s proprietary “Upgrade-in-a-lab” model, which could pave the way for the next version of global delivery in the enterprise application space.
Wipro’s innovative “Upgrade-in-a-lab” model allows complete customization and retrofitting to be done remotely, resulting in approximately 30% reduction in cost. Leveraging this unique model, Wipro is helping Analogic, a leader in North America for the design and manufacture of high-performance medical and security imaging systems, to successfully upgrade to the latest PeopleSoft 9.0 version from the currently deployed PeopleSoft 7.53 version.
The key highlights of this unique model are that it cuts down the upgrade cost by approximately 30% over the traditional model and provides approximately 60% overhead reduction (infrastructure usage, reduction in involvement of customer teams, etc.), resulting in a higher ROI from their enterprise apps upgrade initiatives.
Commenting on the success of this model, Thor Wallace, VP & CIO of Analogic, said, “We are glad that we chose Wipro as our IT partner. Their in-depth process knowledge and the innovative and cost-effective ‘Upgrade-in-lab’ delivery model are key factors in our upgrade initiative. ‘Upgrade-in-lab’ is not only helping us meet our aggressive upgrade schedule; it will also save us approximately 30% over a traditional offshore upgrade approach.”
Raja Ukil, head of PeopleSoft practice for Wipro Technologies, said, “Wipro is continuously developing innovative solutions to help drive non-linearity for our clients. The benefits accrued to our customers from ‘Upgrade-in-a-lab’ validate our efforts.”
Wipro is offering is also this “Upgrade-in-a-lab” delivery model for upgrade of Siebel and JD Edwards instances.
About Wipro
Wipro Technologies, a division of Wipro Limited (NYSE:WIT – News) is the first PCMM Level 5 and SEI CMM Level 5 certified global IT services organization. Wipro Technologies was recently assessed at Level 5 for CMMI V 1.2 across offshore and onsite development centers. Wipro is one of the largest product engineering and support service providers worldwide. Wipro provides comprehensive research and development services, IT solutions and services, including systems integration, information systems outsourcing, package implementation, software application development, and maintenance services to corporations globally.
In the Indian market, Wipro is a leader in providing IT solutions and services for the corporate segment in India, offering system integration, network integration, software solutions and IT services.
Wipro also has a profitable presence in niche market segments of consumer products and lighting. In the Asia-Pacific and Middle East markets, Wipro provides IT solutions and services for global corporations. Wipro’s ADS’ are listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and its equity shares are listed in India on the Stock Exchange — Mumbai, and the National Stock Exchange. For more information, please visit our websites at www.wipro.com and www.wiprocorporate.com.
Forward-looking and Cautionary Statements
Certain statements in this release concerning our future growth prospects are forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks, and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding fluctuations in our earnings, revenue and profits, our ability to generate and manage growth, intense competition in IT services, our ability to maintain our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which we make strategic investments, withdrawal of fiscal governmental incentives, political instability, war, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, unauthorized use of our intellectual property, and general economic conditions affecting our business and industry. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. These filings are available at www.sec.gov. We may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by us or on our behalf.
Contact:
Wipro Technologies
Radhika Mahadevan, +91-9945042606 (India)
radhika.mahadevan@wipro.com
Abhishek Mendiratta, + 1 732 789 8646 (US)
abhishek.mendiratta@wipro.com
Rahul Kadavakolu, +44 792 020 5496 (UK)
rahul.kadavakolu@wipro.com
or
Gutenberg Communications
Sonali Madbhavi, +91 9844042850 (India)
sonali@gutenbergpr.com
Shalini Siromani, +44.79.6066.3200 (UK)
shalini@gutenbergpr.com
Lavanya DJ, +212-239-8740 (US)
lavanya@gutenbergpr.com
Source: Wipro Technologies