Three insurance lessons to learn from the World Series

James Dornbrook

Reporter- Kansas City Business Journal

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Major League Baseball has been holding the World Series for 111 years, surviving a boycott, the Black Sox scandal, two world wars, a strike and an earthquake.

So the league successfully handled many types of events outside of its control that could interfere with the ability to hold the World Series. That's valuable experience that business owners of all kinds can learn from.

Here are a few of the top lessons, according to experts at Aon Risk Solutions:

Unexpected events can and will happen

It was 25 years ago that the World Series was disrupted by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake on Oct. 17, 1989, which caused substantial property damage throughout the San Fransisco Bay Area and killed 63 people. It knocked out power at the stadium and caused the game to be postponed. It was ten days before play could be resumed.

The lesson here is that despite all the preparation made to hold a safe event, Mother Nature is unpredictable. Delays like this can cause direct monetary loss, which is why business interruption insurance is so important.

"Insurance is your backstop to prepare against the unexpected," said Lori Shaw, executive director of Aon Risk Solutions. "A recent example could be what's going on with Ebola. What would your business do if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suddenly warned people not to be in crowds and not to put yourself in a situation where you could be exposed to people who have traveled from distances to come to an event in your city? It could have a tremendous impact on your balance sheet."

James reports about banking, financial services, manufacturing and sports business.