Protecting your business assets

To protect your business assets, you must first understand the risks facing them. For example, your financial and physical assets could be damaged by fire, flood or other types of disaster. They could also be subject to crime - eg stolen, misappropriated or hacked.

Your strategic information, commercially sensitive data and intangible assets (such as intellectual property) are also valuable - and therefore vulnerable to a range of threats.

How do you protect assets?

Start managing risks to your assets by documenting what you own and mapping out potential threats and vulnerabilities against each asset. To reduce the risks:

• keep a record of all assets - see different types of business assets
• carry out regular asset checks, including stock and inventory checks
• carry out a risk assessment for different types of assets
• restrict access to assets such as stock, cash or data, where appropriate
• put in place good risk management practices
• register and enforce your intellectual property rights
• comply with data protection legislation, including the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR)
• apply protective security measures, where necessary
• conduct regular reviews of your asset and management practices
• develop contingency and business continuity plans

Find out what practical steps you can take to secure your business assets.

Insure key assets

Asset insurance can help you bounce back from unexpected problems and replace the cost of lost, stolen or damaged property. You can insure many types of assets with policies covering:

• premises, contents and stock
• cash and credit
• machinery, equipment and vehicles
• IT systems (cyber insurances)
• goods in transit

See more on insurance: business property and assets. In addition to insuring your assets, you can also take out different types of liability insurance.

How to protect intangible assets

Intangible company assets (such as reputation and knowledge) can be more difficult to insure and much more difficult to recover if lost or damaged. However, you can use non-disclosure agreements, trade marks and monitoring for intellectual property assets, and policies for data security and reputation management to help recover other non-physical losses. Follow best practices in managing assets in business and protecting intellectual property.

Asset protection planning

Asset protection is about protecting your personal and business assets from the threat of business liabilities, such as debt obligations, claims of creditors, claims for damages, etc. It reduces risk through the use of legal structures and strategies, such as protected forms of legal ownership. Read more about asset protection planning, and review your circumstances regularly with professionals to stay compliant.