Are You Using These Three Critical Elements of Risk Management in Your Second Half Business?
Insurance Second Half Entrepreneurs[This post originally appeared on the McClanahan Tax blog and has been lightly edited.]
In my last post, I blogged about how business decisions can sometimes have bad outcomes even when you do everything right in the decision-making process.
I’d like to shift gears now and take a look at a helpful framework for assessing and managing risks in your business.
Every potential risk has three elements that you need to consider: probability, severity, and capacity. This is true whether it's a personal or professional/business situation.
1. Probability
What is the probability—or likelihood—that bad outcome x will happen?
Of course, it’s not possible to precisely determine that. But we’re going for a general, statistical likelihood or an “educated guesstimate.”
The probability of your house burning down is relatively low, assuming you’re not shooting fireworks out of your living room.
By way of contrast, if you operate a logging company or sawmill, the probability that you or an employee(s) will get seriously injured or killed at some point may be relatively high.
2. Severity
If bad outcome x happens, how severe are the consequences? I’m focusing on financial liability here, though it could also include outcomes like damage resulting in short-term business shut down, loss of licensing, reputational liability, and the like.
Even if the probability of a bad outcome is low, if it happens the financial severity could be very high. Consider the earlier example of your house burning. For most folks, having to replace a $500,000 home out of current financial resources would be a severe outcome.
3. Capacity
This pertains to your ability to withstand or handle a financial payout if bad outcome x actually happens and it’s as severe as expected.
If you have plenty of resources to cover the risk of a bad outcome—and those resources aren’t already earmarked for other purposes—arguably you have the “capacity” to handle it. That’s essentially self-insuring. (Even though you have capacity, there can still be good reason to not self-insure.)
On the other hand, if you don't have the resources, then you’d typically want to transfer the risk to a party that does have the capacity to handle it. And you’d typically do that through buying insurance, which is simply contractually transferring the risk to the insurance company in exchange for the premiums you pay.
None of this is rocket science. But I’ve found that distilling risk management to these three critical elements can be kind of a “light bulb moment” for folks who've not thought of it quite like that before. I hope that you find it a helpful framework for weighing and managing your risks going forward.
Let's talk if you're seeking a kind of "thinking partner" in helping you assess business and personal risks as part of your financial planning.