Most companies have a business continuity plan and take out insurance to help protect their assets from risks such as fire and theft for example. However, they can often overlook the need to protect their most valuable assets – their people. 

Business protection

Business protection can help to protect your client’s business should a director, partner, member or key employee suffer a critical illness or die.

There are three main types of business protection:

• Key person protection- to protect against loss of revenue if a key employee dies or can’t work because they’re critically ill.
• Ownership protection- (also known as partnership and shareholder protection) to help the other owners keep control of their business if a shareholder dies or is critically ill
• Loan protection- to help repay outstanding financial commitments, such as director loan accounts or bank overdrafts, if the worst should happen to a key person or shareholder.

And remember that currently, the HMRC allows any contributions towards these types of plans to be classed as a business expense, which if offset against taxation. How long this will last we do not know, so act now!

If you already appreciate the benefits to your business of having a protection policy in place maybe it is time to review this. In the time since you first started your plan, many things may have changed in your business that mean you should review the cover you have in place. For example, you may have:

• Taken a new or increased existing business loans;
• Had a change in turnover/profit for your business;
• Reduced or increased the number of staff you employ;
• Employed a new person who is key for your business;
• Welcomed a new shareholder.

Inflation and increases in national average earnings will already have impacted the real value of your initial cover.  

Costs & benefits /product enhancements

Reviewing your arrangements may:

• Reduce costs – all good businesses have a keen eye on expenses, and you may be spending more that you need to (e.g. the same cover may be available at a lower monthly amount). In other words, you may be losing money unnecessarily each month.
• Improve Benefits – there may new products and features launched, that means you could be missing out on better quality cover that may now be available for the same monthly figure to you.

What do you need to do?

Just get in touch, either to set up an insurance policy or to review your existing arrangements and eliminate any uncertainty you may have that your current provisions are still the best solution for you.

Our initial review is always free of charge. By not having a review you may not have the level of cover you now need and could be losing momentum by continuing to pay more than you need to.