Kelly Clow, owner of Lakeside Sundry gift shop in Walworth, Wisconsin, received an unexpected call very early in the morning in mid-January while on vacation with her family in Florida: her employee called to tell her a car had accidentally crashed into Lakeside Sundry’s storefront. The driver had fractures in both of her legs and the store sustained extensive damage as a result of the collision.
Clow opened Lakeside Sundry in Walworth just three years prior to this incident. The lakeside retailer carries resortwear and gifts for locals and vacationers visiting Lake Geneva.
Upon hearing the news, Clow hopped on an earlier flight home to Wisconsin from vacation. She immediately called a friend and contractor to help secure her storefront with a temporary wall.
“It’s the middle of winter, January in Wisconsin, so we had to worry about weather,” she says.
After some initial cleanup work, Clow says she had her insurance adjuster inspect the store. Since first responders used fire retardant during the accident, an environmental hygienist also tested the storefront for contamination. Based on those inspections, Clow says she was told all her merchandise was contaminated from the incident and could not be sold.
“I ended up having to write off 100% of my inventory,” she says. “That escalated the magnitude of this ordeal.”
Clow spent many hours trying to come up with an invoice for every single item that she discarded so she could get reimbursed.
“It took about a month to get through that,” she says. “I had to get in touch with vendors, some of whom I don’t order from anymore, tracking down invoices. Thankfully with technology, the majority of the invoices were attainable by going through old emails and order confirmations and ordering portals online, so that was nice. I can say I’m super grateful for that.”
She’s also grateful for her insurance policy — within 48 hours of submitting her contents claim, she received a check reimbursing her for the losses.
Once claims were submitted, physical repairs went quickly, she says. Clow’s landlords handled construction work as well as restoration to remove fire retardant from everything in the shop. Clow reordered merchandise, set up displays and organized everything in the shop.
After countless hours spent on insurance claims, rebuilding and reordering merchandise, Lakeside Sundry reopened its doors to the Walworth, Wisconsin, community in April. Clow hosted a soft reopening event for family and friends April 5 and officially opened to the public the following day.
“We had a great turnout for the grand opening — there was an outpouring of support,” says Clow. “The community all rallied behind me.”
Despite the accident, Clow says she was able to find some positives from the incident.
“It was a great opportunity for me to clean up my actual inventory and point-of-sale system, which I discovered was off,” she says. “I got to have a clean slate and start from scratch. Given this opportunity to have a clean slate, I’m going to be better about keeping tighter tabs on my inventory.”
Clow adds that she’s grateful she decided to increase the contents portion of her store’s insurance policy just one year before this accident as well. She advises retailers to regularly assess their insurance policies to make sure they’re prepared in case of emergencies like this one.
“Last spring when my policy renewed, I realized I had more inventory than when I opened,” she says. “I called my agent and asked them to increase, and thank God I did! Make sure that your contents portion of your policy is high enough to include the amount of inventory that you hold in your store, and that it covers your displays and everything in your store, including your point-of-sale system, laptop, hangers and so on. It’s better to have too much insurance than not enough.”
