Trade credit insurance and the Coronavirus (COVID-19)
During these unprecedented, uncertain and quite frankly unnerving times, how will we as humans cope? Obviously the most pressing matter is every single person's well-being and safety, but what will everyone be going back to if we are put into lockdown? Will there be a lot of company failures or will the technology advancements we've made mean we will be able to function well?
Technology
There is no denying that the technological advancements that have been made have made it much easier for businesses to have employees working from home. I am writing this blog post from home and will upload it to our website from here. The test now is, can this technology work whilst the entire company's employees work from home. Well, so far so good for us. It's more the human side of it that will be difficult. Having that daily contact with your team really boosts morale. Sharing a joke with the sales team or popping down the other end of the office to see how the administration team are getting on will no longer be possible. It is imperative that the technology stands up to these testing times and we don't lose sight of the benefits of close interaction with our colleagues.
Hands on jobs
In some jobs, the employee simply can't work from home even with current technology. Plumbers, builders, police officers, fire fighters and not forgetting the hard-working doctors and nurses. Looking at this from a business standpoint, how will self-employed plumbers be able to cope if they are ordered to remain self-isolated? Taking this example, if plumbers, electricians and builders are told to self-isolate then a whole construction project would have to stop. Many businesses and self-employed individuals are involved in any given construction project. Should work stop then these companies or the self-employed would stop being paid, thus causing companies to fail. The domino effect could also take place as when one company fails it can cause other companies down the supply chain to fail as well as invoices may not get paid. Trade credit insurance is the insurance policy that protects businesses against the risk of suffering a bad debt.
Business survival
At CMR we have supported businesses for 30 years in the form of protecting them against losses caused by insolvency or simply their customers defaulting on payment. During these uncertain times we are expecting payment defaults and insolvencies to increase. The longer the pandemic goes on the more company failures we are likely to see.
Supporting our customers and colleagues is our absolute priority and we're working hard to make sure we're here to help however the situation develops.
Finally, if you've been affected by the coronavirus pandemic (the illness or self-isolation) and you're worried about what this might mean for your business financially, we're here to help. You can contact us through our website by clicking below. Our trade credit insurance policies are here to help businesses looking to protect their debtor book.