High quality key person insurance providers: Premium Equalisation: Shareholder Protection Premium Equalisation is an essential aspect of business trust policies. When a group of shareholders decides to take out an own life policy individually, they may need to equalize the premiums paid. This is done to prevent HMRC from considering unequal premiums as a “gift” or “wealth transfer” from those who are paying more to those who are paying less. If HMRC views this as a gift, there could be inheritance tax implications if there is ever a claim. Find additional details at https://advice4directors.co.uk/key-person-insurance/.
Who can have Key Person Insurance: Any business looking to protect their business from, life cover, terminal illness, critical illness cover (covering illnesses such as heart attack, stroke, cancer). As will as the typical limited company businesses key person cover can benefit sole traders and partnerships. As mentioned above it is important to get the right level of cover, set up in the most tax efficient manner to give peace of mind, protect the business profits and reduce business risk from the loss of a valuable employee. It gives a much needed cash injection to give cash flow by means of a lump sum payment.
How Much Cover is Needed? When it comes to the amount of cover you need, it is important to reflect the amount that would be needed to pay the debt or loan back in full. To ensure you have the right level of protection, there are two main types of business loan protection insurance available; level and decreasing. Level protection is suitable if your debts stay at a consistent level over a set period, such as with an interest only mortgage. Decreasing protection allows you to address your liabilities in smaller amounts which makes more sense when responding to repayments on longer-term loans such as car finance. Business loan protection can provide significant support during a financially challenging time, allowing the continuity of trading while deferring payments on those outstanding debts. It’s vital that all businesses review their current debt levels regularly and consider the implications if one or more were suddenly unable to be paid off quickly, before selecting an appropriate level of loan protection insurance.
Tax Implications: This form of succession planning is quite complex and you should seek financial advice, legal advice, tax advice and bespoke advice unique to your own situation so the guidelines below will just give a brief overview of what company owners need to watch out for. So it will be very likely that the spouse could not sell the shares at all or sell them at a massively discounted price. With a shareholder protection policy in place it would provide a lump sum payment to the remaining shareholders. The sum assured would be pre-agreed by the business owners. This would allow the individual shareholders to buy the spouses company shares at fair price.
Business loans can be critical for a business to function and grow, but without loan protection, borrowing money becomes a much riskier endeavor. Business loan protection insures the debt should an unforeseen event cause the illness or death of an owner or director who was personally responsible for it. By protecting their loan, business owners minimise their exposure and ensure that the lender is less likely to be left with unpaid debts in such scenarios.
Having key people in an organization can be beneficial in many ways. They offer valuable insight into operational decisions and can often times help problem solve difficult situations. Additionally, they can provide strategic guidance when it comes to reaching desired goals and objectives set out by the company. Key personnel are often seen as mentors across an organization that not only lead but inspire those around them. As such it’s important to identify and retain key personnel, otherwise costly mistakes may be made in the future if their absence is not adequately accounted for. Discover extra info at https://advice4directors.co.uk/.
There is not a one size fit all solution for business protection. It is not quite as easy as getting a £1 million pound life insurance policy for each of the directors and then thinking the business is safe. Instead a business should consult with a business protection expert who can then design a bespoke solution individual to the business Often the policies need to be written in trust and it is also very important to look at the tax position of the policies both the premiums payable and how these are treated and also the sum assured upon a claim. We have helped many directors and business owners protect their businesses.
