With thousands of businesses already adversely affected by recent bad weather and flooding, new research released today by the UK’s largest commercial insurer, RSA suggests that small and medium-sized retailers are dangerously unprepared for interruptions to their Christmas trading period.

For the past seven days, much of the UK has experienced torrential rain resulting in flooding and widespread disruption. As conditions look set to continue, business continuity and managed IT services provider, Phoenix has been on hand to assist many of its 2,000 customers in keeping their business running.

As the insurance cost of the recent flooding looks set to reach £1bn, a study by Iron Mountain shows that although 40% of UK firms regard natural disaster as the top threat to information security, few have taken action to protect their data from flood and fire risk. Iron Mountain has prepared a practical checklist to help firms minimise the impact of a natural disaster and protect their important information assets.

The Business Continuity Awards are open for entries. As in previous years, this year’s criteria has been adjusted to reflect change in the sector. Judged by an independent panel of experts for exceptional performance, service and results in this dynamic industry, this year’s winners will be honoured and awarded at a gala dinner and ceremony on Thursday 30th May at the Hilton on Park Lane in London – an evening that brings industry leaders together for a night of networking and celebration.

Hurricane Sandy could cost insurers between US$5 billion and US$10 billion, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Bloomberg reports that the hurricane’s toll is poised to top US$20 billion worth of “economic damage”.

Cooper Gay & Co is offering a free crisis management and business continuity consultation to its terrorism and political risks policy holders globally. The new service is being made available through a joint initiative with Security Exchange, a risk management consultancy specialising in crisis management and business continuity.

SunGard Availability Services has announced a partnership with Regus, which significantly expands its workplace recovery presence. The deal is comparable to growing SunGard’s portfolio of workplace facilities by 2,000% through a network of almost 1,300 business centres located in more than 550 cities across 97 countries, with SunGard managing customer contracts.

Following a BSI audit, Vodafone UK has been awarded the new international certification in Business Continuity Management, ISO22301.To achieve the new ISO22301 standard Vodafone had to demonstrate the highest levels of business continuity management for both its mobile networks and its customer service and support operations.

Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty has appointed Henning Haagen as global head of aviation EMEA & Asia-Pacific. From January 2013, Haagen will assume the role from Florian Karner who has managed this aviation team for Allianz since 2006 and who is leaving AGCS to take up a new leadership role in general insurance broking in Monte Carlo.

Banks and their customers will be better protected if the Financial Services Authority’s new recommendations on disaster planning are followed to the letter, business continuity provider, Phoenix, says. Phoenix argues that modern technology and specialist knowledge for organisations to have ‘always on’ systems is readily available and there is no excuse for banks not to have entirely robust IT infrastructure and effective recovery plans.

Aon Benfield has launched Elements 7, a loss calculation platform designed to enable insurers to more easily customise catastrophe models. Insurers can now incorporate their own views on the risk of property damage through customised vulnerability curves, based on their actual loss experience or current portfolio. The platform gives insurers access to Impact Forecasting’s 30 catastrophe models spanning over 20 territories and six key perils, with insight on territories worldwide,

FireHost has launched a new business continuity offering supported by DYN DNS hosting. DNS hosting extends the provider's business continuity capabilities beyond high-availability and load balancing solutions. FireHost’s new business continuity solutions allow users to choose between 17 different failover facilities, dispersed across five continents. Customers that require additional control can layer advanced DNS hosting features.

The violence that rocked the UK’s biggest cities during the riots of 2011 accounted for almost 60% of the business continuity plans being invoked during August 2011, according to Phoenix which has today published results from its annual invocation statistics survey.

With just one month to go until the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, businesses should be looking at the final priorities and steps to be taken to ensure operations remain productive, while employees also enjoy the Games.

A flexible working approach will minimise employee absenteeism during the London 2012 Olympic Games, SunGard Availability Services have said. Keith Tilley, managing director, UK, and executive vice-president, Europe, said that organisations should put measures to keep workers content “high on the priority list”.