Changing Scenario of Insurance Needs Date:   Tuesday , October 25, 2016 Headquartered in Kolkata, Ideal Insurance Brokers is an innovative insurance platform that evaluates risks, analyze various available options and negotiate with multiple insurance providers on behalf of the clients. The word �Insurance� is probably most misunderstood and misconstrued as the general perception about the Industry is agents chasing you, selling life insurance, health, car or home insurance. Not even once anyone talks about covering a \'risk\', a \'life\'; but push it as a saving and mandatory proposition. But have you ever thought who saves you if your factory/shop is on fire and everything turns into ashes? When there is a flood/cyclone/earthquake and your dream home that you have made with years of saving disappears? Or who pays for the vehicle damage when it meets with an accident? �Insurance� is the only answer to all these questions. Businesses deal with risk on a daily basis, regardless of their size or industry type. A business owner usually goes for business model and strategic initiatives to make the business \'go\' and perhaps consider Insurance as one of the least priority areas in the beginning. Honestly, it makes business sense to not only accept risk but manage risk and mitigate the same. More often than not, it has been observed that business owners are found to be uninsured at the time of an accident and sadly the resulting costs can often lead to closure of the business. All business owners and mostly start-ups must carry out a small exercise which is a self-risk management and you don\'t need professional help for the same. This can be broadly categorized under four sub heads: 1. Identify your exposure and potential loss. Examples can be fire, AOG (Act of God) perils, casualty and burglary/ theft losses, fraud and embezzlement, injury claims and others. 2. Evaluate likely the financial exposure on account of such losses including frequency of such losses and what could be the maximum financial impact. 3. Decide a way to handle such exposure. In other words, how the same can be contained, controlled or eliminated. In case you feel the risk surmount your appetite to take risk, you need to transfer the risk or seek insurance converge. 4. Keep reviewing your result every quarter or carry out your risk profile analysis Next step is to identify insurances which are mandatory and which are advisable. There is enough variety of insurance for any business to confuse you. Mandatory insurance can be Motor Vehicle insurance, Workmen\'s compensation or similar ones. It is important to find out what insurances you are legally required to avail and what other coverage is a \'must\' have. Today\'s business is driven in a different tangent. Business owners today come with technical acumen, clear of what they want but a much bigger dream than the earlier entrepreneur. Having the right cover for your business makes you realize your dream faster and without any road block. In one of my lectures of family managed business, most of the young crowd was looking for leveraging their business first rather than looking at getting their risk management in place. To make business grow stronger, both have to go hand in hand. With time the needs of the people are changing continuously. To stay in line with the growing change, Insurance industry is also drastically changing. Apart from the traditional health, property and car insurance, there are insurance such as Insurance against cyber-crime, travel insurance, venture capitalist insurance, credit insurance and key man insurance. With \'commoditization\', the next big thing in Indian market is the e-Commerce industry, and most of the businesses use an application to control and transact business. Have you ever thought while using these services; we give away a lot of our personal and card information to these companies, which may not be safe. For such e-Commerce firms, it should be mandate to take Cyber liability insurance to protect their data from getting hacked. Cyber liability policies cover privacy breach liability, cyber extortion, business interruption losses, liability from multimedia and public relations costs, legal expenses and data theft liability. They may also think of availing other financial as well as casualty liability policy. The other transformation is millions of small merchants taking their business online feeling that it is safe and growth will be manifold. You must consult your advisor on how do you cover your exposure, mostly as digital foot print is not easily wiped clean relating delivery, servicing and containing customer data safe. India�s insurable population is anticipated to touch 75 crore in 2020 and it is among the top insurance markets in the world. It is ranked 10th among the 147 countries in the life insurance business, in terms of business done. This sector always booms along with a growing economy as insurance services form the foundation for smooth functioning of all business and commercial activities. It is important to understand your personal insurance needs like Life Insurance, Health Insurance and Commercial Insurance needs if you have exposure to business. I strongly recommend that you carry out the simple exercise of conducting a risk management by taking professional help to understand where you are today and where you will be tomorrow in case you are self-insured.