Disaster Recovery for Business Owners

When disaster strikes your business premises, the first 60 minutes are critical. What you do — and don't do — in that window directly affects the total damage, the restoration timeline and the strength of your insurance claim. Panic is natural, but a clear set of actions will save you thousands and potentially weeks of lost trading.

1. Ensure safety first

Evacuate staff, customers and anyone on the premises immediately. If there is standing water, do not walk through it if there is any chance it is in contact with electrical wiring or appliances. Account for everyone and move to a safe assembly point outside the building. If the building is structurally compromised — visible cracks, sagging ceiling, smoke — do not re-enter until cleared by emergency services.

2. Isolate power and water

If you can safely reach your electrical switchboard, turn off the mains. For water damage, shut off the water supply at the mains stopcock. For gas, turn off the gas meter if you smell gas or suspect a leak. These actions stop the source and prevent secondary damage — a burst pipe that runs for another hour can double the damage footprint.

3. Document the damage immediately

Before you move anything, photograph and video the damage from multiple angles. Capture the full extent: ceilings, walls, floors, stock, equipment, documents. Use your phone's timestamp feature. This evidence is critical for your insurance claim and for any tenant–landlord discussions about liability. Photograph serial numbers on damaged equipment where possible.

4. Secure the premises — protect stock, equipment and documents

Move high-value stock, electronics, paper documents and irreplaceable items to a dry, unaffected area. If water is still entering, use towels, tarpaulins or anything available to divert flow away from critical assets. Cover equipment with plastic sheeting. Every item you protect now is one less item on your insurance claim and one less thing to replace before you can reopen.

5. Call Disaster Recovery — 60-minute response guarantee

Call us or lodge an emergency claim online. Our IICRC-certified contractors from the national NRPG network arrive within 60 minutes, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We begin emergency make-safe immediately: water extraction, containment, drying equipment deployment and structural assessment. You do not need insurer approval — work starts the moment we arrive.

6. Notify your landlord or property manager

If you are a tenant, notify your landlord or managing agent as soon as possible. Most leases require prompt notification of damage. Send a written message (email or text) with your photos and a description of what happened. This creates a paper trail. Do not wait for the landlord to act before engaging a restoration company — delay causes more damage and more cost for everyone.

7. Contact your insurance broker or company

Lodge your claim as early as possible. Have your policy number, the date and time of the event, your initial photos and a brief description of the damage ready. If you have both building and contents insurance, you may need to lodge separate claims. Your broker can guide you. We provide all the documentation your insurer will need — but the initial notification should come from you.

One of the most stressful parts of commercial disaster recovery is working out who is responsible for what. As a tenant, you may feel caught between your landlord, the body corporate and your own insurer. Here is how responsibility typically falls — though your specific lease may vary.

Structure and building damage — typically the landlord's responsibility

Structural elements of the building — walls, roof, floors, plumbing, common stairwells and the building envelope — are generally covered by the landlord's building insurance policy. If a pipe bursts inside a wall cavity and damages the slab, that is usually the landlord's claim. The landlord's insurer will typically appoint their own contractors, though this process can take days or weeks.

Contents, stock, fit-out — typically the tenant's responsibility

Everything you brought into the premises — your stock, equipment, furniture, signage, shelving, computer systems and any fit-out you installed — is your responsibility under your contents or business insurance policy. This is the most common area where business owners are underinsured. If you have spent $100,000 on a kitchen fit-out, your contents policy needs to reflect that.

Common areas in strata — body corporate's responsibility

If your business operates within a strata scheme, damage to common property (lobbies, car parks, shared corridors, external walls) is the body corporate's responsibility under their strata insurance policy. You may still need to coordinate with the strata manager, particularly if the source of damage is in a common area but the effect is in your tenancy.

Lease-specific obligations

Your lease may contain specific clauses about maintenance, repairs and damage notification. Some leases require you to maintain certain fixtures. Some give the landlord the right to choose contractors. Some require you to carry specific insurance minimums. Review your lease — or have your solicitor review it — as part of your recovery process. But do this in parallel with the restoration, not instead of it.

Act first, sort liability later

This is the most important point: do not delay restoration while you argue about who pays. Every hour of delay causes more damage. Mould begins growing within 24–48 hours of water damage. Smoke residue from fire permanently etches glass and metal surfaces within days. The additional damage caused by delay will cost far more than the initial response — and neither landlord nor tenant benefits from a worse outcome.

How Disaster Recovery handles the billing

We bill whoever engages us — the business owner, the tenant, the landlord or the property manager. We do not get involved in tenant–landlord disputes about who should ultimately bear the cost. Our job is to restore your premises as fast as possible and provide the documentation both parties need for their respective insurance claims. If you are the tenant and you engage us, we bill you directly, and you claim reimbursement from your insurer.

Business interruption (BI) insurance is one of the most valuable — and most under-claimed — components of a commercial policy. It covers the revenue you lose while your premises is out of action. But to claim it, you need meticulous documentation. This is where many business owners fall short, and where we provide significant value.

What business interruption insurance typically covers

BI cover generally reimburses your net profit plus ongoing fixed expenses (rent, loan repayments, permanent staff wages, insurance premiums) for the period your business cannot trade. Some policies also cover increased costs of working — for example, the cost of temporary premises or equipment hire to keep partial operations running. Your indemnity period (the maximum time the insurer will cover) is defined in your policy — check it now, before you need it.

Documentation your insurer will need

A successful BI claim requires a clear timeline and supporting evidence. Your insurer will typically ask for:

• Date and time the event occurred
• Date the business ceased trading (or reduced capacity)
• Date the business resumed full trading
• Photographic evidence of damage preventing trade
• Revenue records for the equivalent period in previous years (BAS statements, POS reports, bank statements)
• Evidence of cancelled bookings, diverted customers or lost contracts
• Invoices for any temporary measures (equipment hire, temporary premises)
• The restoration scope of works and timeline from your contractor

What Disaster Recovery provides

We provide a comprehensive documentation package specifically designed to support insurance claims:

• Timestamped photographic record — before, during and after restoration
• Moisture mapping and data logs — objective readings showing the extent of water damage and drying progress
• Detailed scope of works — every task, material and piece of equipment itemised
• Restoration timeline — when work started, milestones reached, completion date
• Completion certificate — confirming the premises has been restored to pre-loss condition

This documentation package is provided as part of your restoration — you do not need to request it separately. It is designed to give your insurer and loss adjuster everything they need without follow-up requests that delay your reimbursement.

How to document your lost revenue

While we handle the physical restoration documentation, you need to handle the financial side. Start a daily log from the moment the event occurs:

• Record your daily revenue for the period you are closed or operating at reduced capacity
• Gather your POS or accounting records for the same period in the previous 12 months
• Keep copies of cancelled bookings, refunded deposits and lost contracts
• Document any customers you had to turn away and the estimated value
• Record all additional expenses: temporary signage, customer notifications, stock storage, alternative premises

Keep a log of everything

From the moment the disaster occurs, keep a written log of every conversation, every phone call, every cost and every decision. Include dates, times and the names of people you spoke to. This log is admissible evidence and is invaluable if there is a dispute with your insurer about the claim timeline, the scope of damage or the period of interruption. Use your phone's notes app and back it up to the cloud daily.

For many businesses — retail shops, warehouses, restaurants, pharmacies — the stock on the premises represents tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in value. What can be saved, what must be written off and how you document the difference has a direct impact on your insurance outcome and your recovery speed.

What can be saved vs what is a write-off

The answer depends on the type of damage, the type of stock and how quickly salvage begins. Hard goods (metal tools, glass, sealed plastics) can often be cleaned and restored. Soft goods (textiles, paper, upholstered furniture) are more difficult — water-damaged fabric can be cleaned if treated within 24–48 hours, but mould contamination usually means a write-off. Electronics depend on whether power was running at the time of water exposure. If an item was powered on and got wet, it is almost certainly damaged beyond economical repair.

Time-sensitive items require immediate decisions

Some stock categories have zero tolerance for delay:

• Food and perishables — if cold chain has been broken or flood water has contacted food, it must be disposed of immediately. Health regulations are non-negotiable.
• Pharmaceuticals — any medication exposed to water, heat or contamination must be quarantined and cannot be sold. Contact the TGA for disposal requirements.
• Electronics and electrical equipment — remove power immediately. Do not attempt to turn on wet electronics. A specialist data recovery service may be able to retrieve drives.
• Paper documents and records — freeze wet documents within 48 hours to prevent mould. Professional document drying services can recover most paper records if treated quickly.

Inventory documentation for insurance

Before you dispose of anything, photograph it. Photograph every damaged item individually where practical, and in bulk where not (for example, a pallet of water-damaged cartons). Record the quantity, description and approximate replacement value. Your insurer needs this evidence to assess your contents claim — if you dispose of stock without documentation, you may not be reimbursed.

If you have a POS system or inventory management system, export your current stock levels before the disaster (or as close to the event date as possible). This becomes your baseline for calculating loss.

Salvage vs replacement cost

Your insurance policy may cover replacement cost (what it costs to buy new) or indemnity value (the current value of the item, accounting for depreciation). Check your policy wording. For high-value items like commercial kitchen equipment, refrigeration units or specialised machinery, the difference between replacement cost and indemnity value can be significant. If your policy pays replacement cost, it may be more cost-effective to claim a write-off than to pay for restoration of a partially damaged item.

How Disaster Recovery helps with inventory assessment

Our contractors are trained to work alongside you during the initial assessment to categorise stock into salvageable and non-salvageable. We photograph and document everything as part of our standard process. For commercial restoration projects, we can coordinate with specialist services — document drying, electronics recovery, cold storage for perishable goods — to maximise what can be saved and minimise your claim.

This is ultimately what matters: reopening your doors and returning to revenue. Every decision we make — from the initial response to the final sign-off — is driven by one question: what gets this business trading again as fast as possible, without compromising the quality of the restoration?

Our restoration timeline — what to expect

Every situation is different, but here is a general timeline for a commercial water damage restoration:

• Hour 0–1: Emergency response arrives, initial assessment, water extraction begins
• Hours 1–4: Make-safe complete, drying equipment deployed, containment set up
• Days 1–3: Active drying phase, daily moisture monitoring, salvage assessment
• Days 3–7: Drying targets met, equipment removed, remediation of affected materials begins
• Days 7–14+: Restoration and reinstatement (painting, flooring, fit-out), depending on scope

For smaller incidents (a single room, localised leak), you could be back trading within 48–72 hours. For major events (full floor flooding, fire damage), the timeline extends accordingly — but we give you a clear schedule from Day 1 so you can plan.

Partial trading — can some areas remain open?

Wherever possible, we work to keep unaffected areas of your business operational. We use physical containment barriers, negative air pressure systems and dust management to isolate the restoration zone from the trading zone. If your shop front is unaffected but your storeroom is flooded, you may be able to keep serving customers while we work behind the scenes. We assess this on arrival and discuss options with you immediately.

Temporary relocation considerations

If your entire premises is uninhabitable, you may need to operate from a temporary location. Consider:

• Does your business interruption insurance cover temporary premises costs?
• Can you redirect your phone number and update your Google Business Profile listing?
• Do you have a business continuity plan with pre-identified alternative sites?
• Can you shift to online or delivery-only operations temporarily?

The faster you make these decisions, the less revenue you lose. We give you a realistic timeline on Day 1 so you can make informed choices about whether to relocate or wait.

Compliance — health and safety certification before reopening

Depending on your industry, you may need clearance certificates before reopening. Food businesses require health and safety sign-off. Childcare centres need specific air quality certification. Medical practices must meet infection control standards. Our IICRC-certified contractors understand these requirements and ensure the restoration meets the applicable Australian Standards. We provide completion certificates that satisfy both your insurer and your regulatory body.

Speed without compromising quality

We understand the pressure to reopen. But cutting corners on restoration — reopening before drying targets are met, painting over moisture, skipping mould checks — leads to problems that are far more expensive to fix later. Our approach is aggressive timelines with rigorous quality checks. We use data-driven drying (daily moisture readings, psychrometric monitoring) to push the process as fast as the physics allow, while ensuring the restoration is complete and will not fail within months.

Navigating the insurance process after a disaster is one of the most frustrating parts of recovery. You are already dealing with damage, lost revenue and operational disruption — the last thing you need is weeks of back-and-forth with your insurer before work can even begin. Our billing model eliminates that delay entirely.

We bill you directly — not your insurer

This is the single most important thing to understand about how we work: we bill you directly — the business owner or tenant. We do not bill your insurance company, and we do not wait for your insurer to approve the scope of works before starting. This means work begins immediately. No waiting for a loss adjuster to visit. No waiting for scope negotiations between your insurer and a panel contractor. No two-week delay while paperwork moves between departments.

You control the process

Because you are our client — not the insurance company — you control the restoration. You decide the priority areas, you approve the scope, and you set the timeline expectations. There are no scope disputes between us and an insurer that leave your premises half-restored while they negotiate. You get the restoration you need, when you need it.

Full documentation for your claim

We provide everything your insurer needs to process your reimbursement claim:

• Timestamped before, during and after photographs
• Moisture data and drying logs
• Detailed scope of works with itemised materials and labour
• Equipment deployment records
• Completion certificate confirming restoration to pre-loss condition

You submit this documentation package to your insurer as part of your claim. Because our documentation is thorough and IICRC-compliant, it satisfies the evidence requirements insurers look for. This reduces the chance of your claim being disputed or delayed. For more detail on the insurance claims process, see our Emergency Make-Safe Guide.

The $2,750 emergency make-safe fee

The initial emergency make-safe service costs $2,750. This is broken down as:

• $550 — Disaster Recovery platform fee (triage, contractor matching, coordination)
• $2,200 — held for the attending NRPG contractor (emergency response, extraction, make-safe works)

After the emergency make-safe is complete, your contractor will provide a formal scope of works and contract for the full restoration. This contract includes clear terms, conditions and pricing before any further work proceeds.

Payment plans for larger restorations

Commercial restorations can run into tens of thousands of dollars. If you need to spread the cost while waiting for your insurance reimbursement, payment plans are available through Blue Fire Finance. This allows you to get the restoration done now and manage cash flow while your insurer processes the claim. Many business owners find this particularly useful because insurance reimbursement can take 30–90 days, and you cannot afford to wait that long to restore your premises and resume trading.

The most common questions we receive from business owners and commercial tenants during a disaster recovery situation.

Have a question not answered here? Lodge an emergency claim or visit our business hub for more resources.