In order to be successful in your line of business and make a profit (because, after all, this is the Business Success Index these days), it's not enough to be 100% professional in your undertakings and provide the best services or goods.
The unknown plays also an important role, be it fate, bad or good luck.
There are plenty of dangers - some expected, some completely unexpected - attacking you out of the blue that you have to take into account as well.
They may come in the form of natural disasters, terrorist attacks, accidents, whatever else may damage your property or injure your employees or customers.
It comes without saying that you have to protect yourself and your business against these decisive factors that may transform a genuine success into an utter failure in a matter of minutes.
If you are the owner of a wine bar, for instance, and an explosion or a leak compromises your stocks, you'll have nothing to sell, or if you have a pub and a brawl between two tipsy customers degenerates into a serious attack before your security could even intervene and one of them dies or gets gravely injured, you are also liable.
Not speaking about the situation when your own employees, be it the bartender or the guards get hurt.
In the first case, you'd need a valid public liability insurance, and in the latter employers liability insurance.
Whether you work with the public or you just have employees, you have to be protected against anything unfortunate happening to the human factor while within your precincts.
With the proper insurance, you'll not have to worry about paying compensations to the injured party or about reimbursing legal expenses, if your employees are at fault in their relation to customers.
Of course, the building itself and its contents are also important and, if you are the owner of a guesthouse, you don't want your guests to leave with the TV set or the mini-fridge, or, if you have a shop, to have half its goods carried away by shoplifters.
But as hard to believe as it seems, risks and damages may be as great when you are not insured against people's actions in themselves, and not only when your stocks remain unprotected.
If, for example, you have a recruitment agency and you provide all-pairs that, in spite of a careful background check, injure by negligence the babies left in their care, then you'll have to pay.
But with indemnity insurance, covering all the damage your employees could cause to a third party, you are fully protected.
Both the compensations on behalf of your agency and the legal expenses, in case the damage was so serious that you got sued, will be paid by the insurance company.
So for the best protection against the unpleasant unexpected in whatever form, get insured before starting your business!