contingency plan

American  

noun

1. a course of action to be followed if a preferred plan fails or an existing situation changes.

2. a plan or procedure that will take effect if an emergency occurs; emergency plan.

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Example Sentences

Lincoln Riley still isn’t saying if he thinks he’ll lose defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn to Penn State, but he has a contingency plan ready if necessary.

From Los Angeles Times

So I had a contingency plan to be there in El Salvador when she arrived because I wanted to make sure at least somebody that she knew was there.

From Slate

The vast majority of principals surveyed, nearly 78%, said their campuses created plans to respond to visits from federal agents and nearly half have a contingency plan for when a student’s parents are deported.

From Los Angeles Times

In a subsequent bankruptcy-court filing, Marriott said: “Sonder collected tens of millions of dollars in advance payments for reservations it now admits it will never honor, spent weeks on a failed restructuring without any contingency plan, and failed to reserve sufficient liquidity to support an orderly wind-down.”

From The Wall Street Journal

She added that, if a pandemic were to re-occur, the executive should make sure that "we are well prepared, have a considered response, and there should be a contingency plan that is fully operational and able to be stood up at very short notice".

From BBC