It's Not You, It's Me What would happen to your business if someone stole your identity?

A sole proprietorship, a partnership or even a closely heldcorporation is usually very dependent on its owner's personalcredit rating. If your credit rating is damaged, even temporarily,the impact on your company could be devastating. What's more,identity-theft victims can spend hundreds of hours getting theirrecords cleared up--hours that should be spent working on theirbusinesses.

One solution is identity-recovery insurance, says Rick Boettner,property and casu-alty underwriting manager with Capitol InsuranceCompanies in Madison, Wisconsin. The coverage is relatively newand varies by carrier, but typically, the insurer works to clearthe victim's credit history and reimburse costs incurred toresolve problems resulting from identity theft.

"We give our insureds an option," says Boettner."We assign a case manager to all of our insureds. We willallow the insureds to handle the process themselves with guidanceprovided by the case manager, or we'll have the case managerwork on their behalf and take over the process, calling creditbureaus, writing letters, rewriting credit reports and keepingrecords."

Adding identity-recovery insurance to an existing businesspolicy will run about $30 per year, Boettner says. It coversbusiness owners, partners and corporate officers who own 50 percentor more of the company.

Jacquelyn Lynn is a freelance business writer in Orlando,Florida.