In 2017, the U.S. experienced 52 major disaster declarations—surpassing the previous year’s tally of 46, according to FEMA.

Out of these events, 16 resulted in losses exceeding $1 billion, forcing the year to close out with a new annual record for the cumulative cost of $1-billion disasters: a staggering $306.2 billion.

These $1-billion events included the three storms which hit the Atlantic basin, Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, as well as the wildfires that ravaged parts of California, a single 30-minute hailstorm in Colorado, a deep freeze in the Southeast and numerous severe weather events in the U.S. heartlands.

During a recent webinar, 2017 Year-In-Review: Valuable Lessons & Best Practices, Scott Teel, vice president of organizational development at Agility Recovery, noted that “the general trend of these events continues upwards, both in terms of the quantity and the impact.”

“All in all, there’s no permanently safe area to try and avoid these kinds of large-scale events. Now is the time to be asking some very detailed questions regarding coverage,” Teel said.

How confident are you that your commercial clients have proper and complete coverage against natural disasters? In a period of environmental and climatic flux, it’s more important than ever to talk to them about the risks posed by different perils and the coverage available to protect their business and income.

Here are four ways to ensure businesses are adequately insured against disasters:

Cover the costs. “Nothing is more important financially during a recovery than business interruption insurance and added expense coverage,” Teel said.

Business interruption insurance helps your clients recover lost revenue in the event that a disaster forces them to temporarily close their doors. However, it will not necessarily help cover the additional costs of recovery for incidentals such as generators, fuel, hotel rooms and relocation expenses. Added expense coverage helps offset those costs.

Establish operational downtime. If their business is unable to function, do your clients understand their total cost exposure in terms of revenue? Educating them about these numbers helps you establish how much business interruption coverage they should purchase.

And it’s not a one-time conversation—make sure you review these needs at every renewal. “It’s too often that you’ve gone with the same policy year after year. Your [client’s] revenue has increased year after year, but [their] business interruption coverage doesn’t take that into account,” Teel warned.

Make a record. Encourage your clients to document all physical assets and equipment. “You’ve probably heard that you should take photos of all of your possessions and valuables at home. The same holds true for work,” Teel said. “Think of this as an asset inventory.”

Teel also suggested making sure a policy includes all this information, and storing it either in the cloud or offsite for easy access if business premises are affected.

Check limits and exclusions. Teel has recently observed situations where claims are denied due to coverage limitations or exclusions.

“There are a lot of people facing this issue right now in Houston because they didn’t have flood coverage and they weren’t in a typical flood zone,” Teel said. “You should be talking about all the risks and the proper coverage for those different perils.”

Will Jones is IA assistant editor.