Preparing Your Facility for a Potential Flood

As a medical practice, you have an obligation to the safety and health of your patients and employees.

Carrying strong commercial insurance means protecting your practice from threats that could pose safety risks to your business and patients. Various unpreventable and unpredictable perils can affect your medical practice. Among these perils is the threat of weather.

Your commercial property insurance likely gives you multiple protections from weather damages. However, commercial property insurance likely doesn’t coverage floods, even though they can cause extremely potent damages.

Flood damages usually only have damage coverage under special commercial flood insurance policies. Depending on the location of your practice, it may face varying degrees of flood risk. If a flood risk is low to moderate, many practices might be able to forego this coverage. However, if a practice is in a high-risk zone, the law might require that the practice carry flood insurance.

It is a good idea for all medical practices to consider commercial flood insurance. Even in low-risk zones, the threat of flooding still exists. A flood insurance policy might come in handy in case of an unforeseen event of flooding. It can help you recoup and replace damaged property, and make repairs.

If flood conditions threaten, consider taking steps to secure your practice. Doing so can greatly reduce your flood insurance risks. In the event of imminent flooding:

• Do not operate your practice. Close the practice. Do not allow your employees to come into work or see patients if flood waters threaten the business.
• Secure your medical records. These records contain vital patient information and extremely private statistics. If these records get destroyed or damaged, they pose a risk to the practice and to patients. Move them to a safe location, regardless of if they are paper or digital records.
• Shut down the practice’s vital systems, like your plumbing, HVAC and electricity. Evacuate any movable computer systems. Doing so can help prevent flood waters from damaging these systems.
• Store your medical equipment or evacuate it to a safe location. Medical equipment is very expensive and at times extremely sensitive. Exposure to water may damage the equipment. Also take time to store or remove vital medical supplies from the premises.

Do not resume operations without taking steps to ensure the security of the business.

• Fully repair any water damages and water-logged systems. Make sure inspectors check the operations of medical equipment and utility systems.
• Thoroughly clean and sanitize the practice.
• Check your supplies and medication stores for signs of contamination or water damages.
• Ensure that your records have not sustained damages.

Remember to check with your insurance carrier following a flood. Weather-related floods likely only have coverage by flood insurance. However, floods from property problems, like burst pipes, may have coverage under your property insurance.

We’ve got you covered. We can help you get a commercial flood insurance policy for your medical practice. Call us at 800.462.3401 for more information.