Loss of revenue

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JBloggs

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I believe I asked this question last year, and here I am asking again. When they estimate the costs of these natural disasters, such as Superstorm Sandy, perhaps it is insurance only $ guestimate, but what about the inns who lose business due to this? Not damaged, but loss of revenue. The two obv reasons they don't travel, flights have all been cancelled, or they go home, we lose bookings. Many of us did.
I think I asked about this as there didn't seem to be any real numbers, and somehow we were left out in the cold. I was calculating my end-of-year totals to compare to last year, as I always do and then remembered we had:
#1 the Derecho (roof peeled off and trees torn apart, water damage inside, couldn't accept any guests)
#2 the power outages (no power, no a/c! had to cancell all rooms already booked)
#3 the lightning damage (had to close for THAT one to get much repaired to be operational again)
#4 Sandy (Had to turn people away in case we lost power and it was a liability issue - with the big tree a possible danger here).
So the total loss of revenue would have been about $1500-2500. Which is not a huge amount, but total them up from all of us and it could be substantial.
Your thoughts?
 
The next question is "Is this something you can claim on taxes?" You knew I was going to ask. We might be in the red forever if I do! :)
 
I guess if you purchased business interruption insurance, your insurance company would have some method of determining how much you're due, and each company is probably a little different in how they do this. But that type insurance usually only applies if you have actual damage to the building that prevents you having income. Maybe Lloyd's of London would have a policy to cover people cancelling due to bad weather. They seem to have anything you want...for a price.
Regarding claiming on your taxes, my accountant always told me you only pay taxes on what you make, and if you don't make money for some reason, the IRS doesn't care about what never happened, or why.
 
We have an added insurance policy for things like that. They pay out an average of what we make during the time last year. So if we lose power, tornado, fire, storm damage.....and so on. You might check into it. It does not work for storms and damage from towns around you. Just you. If its travel related, you can offer TravelGuard. It has help a lot with weather related travel cancellations! Hope next year is a better one for you!
 
Yeah you know how it is, well if there is a hurricane coming up the coast, maybe those people along the coast, or planning a vacation that includes the coast will make a detour. Now I can stick to the policies, and be a butt-head or let them go since it is a named storm.
We had people with no flights and have to rent cars and reroute to get home, so they were highly stressed and really appreciated out understanding. So it is the ripple down effect.
Thanks Arks, that was a good thing to tell me, I will stick that in my brain now.
It all comes out in the wash though, to use my innkeeping vernacular... one year we had people cancel the coast and come to the mountains.
I am only asking, it was not huge, but a combined total for many inns may be, so I thought i would ask again.
 
We have been fortunate - we did not lose power during any of the storms. We were a sanctuary during the Derecho and gave free nights to a couple families. We were not in the area hardest hit by the Slammin' Sandy. Today was the first day sine it hit that ALL of WV had power again. People here are more resilient than those in big cities (probably because they are used to getting hit with no power and snowed in or flooded out) - I did not hear anyone whining about not having power and being snowed in and our radio station and the Statewide radio program devoted a week to the storm and every day has told how many and where they were that did not have power.
I feel for those who lost business because of the storm - the tax man may not be able to tax what you did not get but the bill collector still wants his due every month - and he does not give a rat's butt why you do not have any money.
I got my insurance bill today. I do not have the "cadillac" with the loss of business coverage because the difference in that insurance costs with all the bells and whistles I have to take in the package and what I do have is about $1000.
 
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