For many business owners, checking the weather is something you do on your way out the door, not something that has anything to do with your insurance. This year, that’s starting to change. For months now, forecasting centers — from NOAA here in the U.S. to the World Meteorological Organization — have been talking about a pattern called El Niño, and they agree on something unusual: this could turn into one of the strongest events on record in decades.
That’s not a reason to panic. It’s a reason to understand what’s shifting this year and how exposed your business actually is to that shift — before the weather makes the decision for you.
What’s happening this year
NOAA has already issued an El Niño Advisory: conditions are already in place, and they’re expected to strengthen heading into winter. Some models — including the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts — are now putting the odds of a Super El Niño at near-certain, an event some meteorologists are comparing to 2015, and in its more extreme form, even to 1877.
For New York, that points to a hotter-than-normal summer, with heat waves and severe thunderstorms — something that’s already starting to show. Winter, on the other hand, tends to run milder in strong El Niño years, but with one important caveat: along the Atlantic coast, the shift in the jet stream tends to steer storms toward the mid-Atlantic, which historically means more storm surge events. As for hurricanes, El Niño typically increases wind shear, making it harder for storms to organize — good news in terms of overall numbers, though systems that form close to the coast still carry real risk, since they leave less time to prepare.
How it could hit your business, depending on what you run
Restaurants. Extreme heat isn’t just a reason customers stay home — it puts direct pressure on refrigeration and HVAC systems. Before the hottest days hit, it is worth getting preventive maintenance done on your equipment: check compressors, clean condensers, calibrate thermostats, instead of waiting for something to fail mid-service.
It also helps to have a plan for an extended power outage — whether that’s a backup generator, a backup ice supplier, or simply knowing how long your walk-in can hold temperature before inventory is at risk.
A single equipment failure in the middle of summer can mean losing an entire inventory in a matter of hours, on top of the reduced operating days a prolonged heat wave can bring. That’s worth checking against your policy too — specifically whether it covers mechanical breakdown, not just physical damage from external causes like a fire or a burst pipe.
Contractors. More severe storms in summer mean more rain days on the job site — that’s already part of doing business in New York —, but there are ways to soften the impact. Building buffer time into your schedule, instead of running it right up against the delivery date, gives you room to absorb a day or two of rain without throwing off the whole project. Securing materials and equipment ahead of a storm — covering, anchoring, protecting anything exposed on site — also prevents losses that are hard to justify later in a claim.
It’s also worth spelling out with your client, in the contract itself, what happens to the timeline when a delay is weather-related, so that conversation doesn’t happen mid-project. On the insurance side, confirm that your builders risk coverage on the active project reflects the added exposure of a more active season than usual.
Property owners. This is probably the most direct angle. Before storm season arrives, check that the building’s drains and sump pumps are working, that gutters aren’t clogged, and that the basement — if there is one — doesn’t have any unsealed points where water could get in.
It also helps to have recent photos of the building’s condition; that documentation makes a real difference if you ever need to support a claim. Buildings in coastal or low-lying areas face greater exposure to storm surge this winter, and that ties directly to flood coverage, which in many cases isn’t automatically included in a standard commercial policy and must be purchased separately.
Retail businesses. For businesses with basement or street-level storage in higher-exposure coastal areas, it’s worth checking what inventory is sitting directly on the floor and, where possible, raising it onto pallets or shelving — a few inches can be the difference between losing the merchandise and saving it.
It’s also worth confirming the sump pumps in your space are working and keeping an updated inventory list, so it’s clear what was lost if something happens. The risk goes beyond what’s stored downstairs: it can mean weeks of interrupted operations while the space is repaired and damaged goods are replaced — so confirming your policy includes flood coverage, rather than assuming it does, is worth doing with time to spare.
Independent professionals. The exposure looks different here, but it’s not absent. Having a power backup — even something as simple as a portable battery to keep working through a short outage — and keeping your work backed up to the cloud instead of relying only on a local drive are simple steps that prevent lost hours when a severe storm hits.
If your office is your home, it also helps to have a backup plan — a coffee shop, a coworking space — for the days you can’t work from there. An extended power outage or several days of being unable to work from home represents a real interruption to your income, something worth keeping in mind when you review your coverage, even without a commercial space involved.
Check it now, not later
None of these scenarios is a certainty. Weather forecasts, no matter how sophisticated, are still probabilities, not guarantees. But that same uncertainty is exactly why it’s worth reviewing your coverage now, while there’s still time to adjust what needs adjusting, instead of finding a gap in the middle of a storm or a heat wave.
At Rondon Brokerage, we help our clients make sure their coverage keeps up with their business. If you’d like to talk through how any of this applies to your operation, we’re here.
