Millennial business owners may be far better at addressing professional risks than their older counterparts, a new Nationwide study has found.

Their attentiveness to various kinds of property/casualty insurance runs the gamut. Nationwide found, for example, that 51 percent of millennial small business owners are likely to have a disaster recovery plan in place. That compares to 30 percent from Generation X, and 29 percent of baby boomers.

Other statistics also heavily favor millennials as being more attentive to risk reduction.

About 62 percent of millennial small business owners are more likely to have in place business interruption insurance coverage. Only 26 percent of Gen X scores the same way, and just 19 percent of baby boomer small business owners retain the coverage.

Cyber Cover Savvy

Cyber-attack insurance coverage and response plans are relatively new elements in the insurance marketplace, but millennials have their older counterparts beat here, too. According to Nationwide, 42 percent of millennial small business owners have a cyber-attack response plan in place. Only 17 percent of Gen X small business owners can say the same thing, while just 12 percent of their baby boomer counterparts have addressed this.

In a related issue, 79 percent of millennial small business owners said they could understand their cyber policies. That number drops to 51 percent for Gen X and 40 percent for baby boomers.

Millennials also are far more likely to provide retirement benefits and workers compensation coverage to their employees, Nationwide said.

Also worth noting, millennials appear much more likely than their Gen X or baby boomer small business owner counterparts to understand insurance coverage. Millennials score 97 percent on this, while the other two demographics produced an 83 percent affirmative response.

Gaps Likely

Of course, millennial small business owners aren’t perfect in terms of their insurance coverage., Nationwide found that they were 62 percent more likely to have gaps in their business coverage. For Gen X and baby boomers, this number dipped to 43 percent and 34 percent, respectively.

Nationwide conducted its small business owner study online from June 10-23. Participants were drawn from the Harris Poll online research panel and partner sample and weighted to be reflective of U.S. small business owners.

The survey determined small companies as having 50 or fewer employees, while midsize companies employed 50-99 people. Millennials, for the purpose of the study, are considered to be ages 18-35, and Gen X hits the age 36-50 bracket. Baby boomers are ages 51-65.

Source: Nationwide