Lately I’ve been affected by, or near to, an unfortunate run of luck–my own little medical hiccup (much better now, thanks), my mother-in-law taking a terrible fall where she broke her arm and hip (upper femur), and now my husband seems to have food poisoning or something. Oh yeah, and the earth moved, though that was quite minor. There was no way to predict any of these events, but we did plan on the possibility of them happening by getting insurance to cover potential losses. It’s a good idea. While we can’t predict, we can make reasonable assumptions of what risks are most likely, and take steps to protect against those losses.
On one of the photographers’ forums, there is a discussion of a photo assistant who got hit while riding his motorcycle last weekend. The photographer who posted wisely brought up the need for disability insurance as well as health insurance. If you work for yourself, you need disability insurance…especially (but not exclusively!) if you do things like ride motorcycles. Just because you are a good rider makes no difference–the assistant in question did nothing wrong, but now he’s in the hospital and out of work for who knows how long. Just go get the insurance already, okay?
Yesterday my husband told me about a friend of his, another architect who works for himself, who just had his office robbed. The thieves took his brand new Mac. Worse, they took his backup hard drive. He lost everything–all his current projects and several past ones. The same thing can easily happen to photographers. Make sure to follow, at a minimum, the 3-2-1 rule: 3 backups on 2 different media with 1 copy kept off-site. Also, get E/O insurance (you may have this as part of a biz policy, but check on it). E/O stands for Errors and Omissions, but what it covers are things like paying a client because that project you’ve been working on was lost because your studio/office got robbed or if a client thinks you haven’t fulfilled your contract completely.
What I am not saying, let’s be clear, is to be afraid of all the bad things that can happen. There are all sorts of things that might, maybe, possibly happen and you just could not possibly plan for them all. And if you start thinking that way–that there are so many risks, that is–I highly encourage you to get some therapy because that’s a quick road to never setting foot outside the door! No, don’t be afraid of the world and the crap that happens. Do, however, think about reasonable precautions, like insurance, for things that are more likely to happen.