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The Crown Blog
Hurricane Season Preparation Tips for Your Business Documents
Don’t Let Mother Nature Ruin Your Business – Seek Help from the Pros
Florida is known as the Sunshine State, but not far behind is its reputation for hurricanes. From June until November, the residents and guests of this lovely state watch the weather, waiting and preparing for the next storm to hit land. When there is a threat offshore, businesses and homeowners get ready by placing plywood planks over windows and hunkering down. The goal is to be prepared for the worst. Your Florida company will benefit significantly from preparing documents to stay secure in the next hurricane season. By using the services of an information management company, you can be at peace when bad weather hits. Services such as records management and media destruction ensure that documents are kept safe, secure, and dry. Recovering from a natural disaster is more manageable with help from the pros.
Tips to Secure Your Documents During Hurricane Season
It would be best not to remain complacent about preparing for natural disasters. This is particularly true in hurricane-prone Florida. Take these steps to implement a structured continuity and disaster plan:
- Identify and categorize vital documents. Determining the most critical documents will help with recovery later. You can break them down into three categories based on priority. Priority A documents are those records that support your emergency business continuity and operations after a hurricane hits. They include disaster plans, facility plans, core procedures, and emergency contact lists. Priority B records are essential for the legal and auditing end of business. They are not needed immediately after a disaster. They include current contracts and active associate contact lists. Priority C records are similar to Priority B because you won’t need them immediately, but they are older records required for audit purposes.
- Protect your essential documents. These documents form the backbone of your business, validate the company’s existence, and are crucial for insurance claims. It’s vital that you gather and store the following documents in a waterproof location: Articles of Incorporation, licenses, special certifications, employee records, tax records, insurance paperwork, HIPAA, FACTA, and other compliance records.
- Establish a system for offsite record keeping and shredding. Imagine going through a hurricane and finding your records strewn across the area. This could tarnish your reputation as you try to recover from the effects of the disaster. You can save more documents from landing in the wrong hands by regularly storing documents offsite with an information management company. Additionally, shredding records that you no longer need is essential to keep criminals at bay.
Make Hurricane Recovery Easier with Help from the Information Management Pros
Prepare for hurricane season with help from the team at Crown Information Management. We have a safe and secure facility ready to store your paper records. Our facility is a free-standing, wind-rated building for 140 to 150 mile-an-hour winds, equal to a Category 4 Hurricane). Unlike the usual flat roofs of warehouses and industrial parks, the roof is pitched to whisk water away. We keep our facility clean and pest-free. Are you ready to learn more? Call us today!
For experienced help with document storage, shredding, media destruction, and records management, call Crown Information Management. You can reach us at 800-979-9545 or contact us online to learn more about our services. Put our team to work for you. We are a SOC1 Level 2 Report,NAID AAA, and PCI Certified company.