Growing up in South Louisiana has its benefits; hunting, fishing, boating, great food and fun times. It also has its risks, as we all learned in August of 2005 when Katrina wiped away a lot of our our beautiful gulf coast.

Insurance can cover damage to property and contents. It can even cover business interruption, but what happens if a historical, technical or business critical paper document gets destroyed or damaged beyond repair? It cannot be replaced or recreated and the information that it contains is gone forever.

Fortunately, the technology exists to protect the information on these precious documents.  The answer is to scan and digitize your records. Think of it as Document Information Insurance.  If you need to retain documents for 5, 10, 20 years or permanently, storing them in the cloud, on hard drives and microfilm will ensure business continuity. The information on these documents will be protected from damage caused by fire, flood, natural disasters and deterioration.

Most of us can easily comprehend what would happen if tragedy struck. Here are a few statistics to drive home this point. 

• 30% of all businesses that have a major fire go out of business within a year. 70% fail within five years. (Home Office Computing Magazine)

• Companies that aren't able to resume operations within ten days (of a disaster hit) are not likely to survive. (Strategic Research Institute)

• Within two years after Hurricane Andrew struck in 1992, 80 percent of the affected companies that lacked a business continuity plan failed (FEMA).

• According to Labor Department statistics, over 40 percent of all companies that experience a disaster never reopen and more than 25 percent of those that do reopen close within two years.

Pretty startling numbers, right? Don't be a victim, scan and backup your critical documents.