Business Protection

At the start of 2021, there were 5.5 million small businesses in the UK with some 5 million of those businesses being family-owned. The impact of death and/or serious illness can be devastating and in the case of a family-run business potentially threatening the legacy of more than one generation (FSB and IFB Nov 2021)

How Nicholas James help business owners

We take the time to thoroughly fact-find our business clients in order to identify the main risks to their business before recommending a solution to mitigate them. We focus on the following areas:

Business history and its future plans
Who has been involved in the business, what are their roles and responsibilities, and how do they expect these to develop in the coming years?
Does the business plan to expand, and how will it manage the associated risks?

We ensure that our recommendations are both cost effective and tax-efficient.

Protecting the employees

Small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) know that their company’s greatest asset is their staff. Employee absence due to illness or injury can have a profound financial impact affecting both the productivity and profit of that business.

Solution - a cash lump sum or replacement income in the event that the employee dies or is unable to work due to an accident or disability. With corporation tax relief available, there is no additional income tax or National Insurance to pay on the premiums, and the premiums can be typically treated as an allowable business expense by HMRC

Protecting the Business

Debt

Many businesses will borrow money at some point. This might be for initial start-up costs, to fund future growth and expansion, or for an emergency. Borrowing takes many different forms but what they all have in common is the need for the business to be able to repay the loan. In the event of the guarantor of the debt/line of credit dying or suffering a serious illness this could force the creditor to demand early repayment or a renegotiation of the credit onto less attractive terms.

Solution - a cash lump sum to enable the business to either repay the debt in full or to cover the monthly repayments in the event of the death or serious illness of the guarantor.

Profit

It is common for small businesses to rely on one or two key people for their profits, especially when we consider over 96% of businesses have less than 10 employees. The absence of these key people due to death or ill-health could seriously impede the leadership, direction or profitability of the business.

Solution – A cash lump sum to enable the business owners to fund the replacement of a key person or physically replace lost profit should the key person die or suffer a serious illness.

Ownership

A business owner dying can have a profound effect on the ability of a business to remain profitable and in some instances to even remain trading. The passing of the deceased’s share to a beneficiary outside of the business introduces an unknown element to the ownership structure which can be potentially threatening to both employee and client confidence.

Solution – A cash lump sum to enable the surviving business owners to ‘buy out’ the deceased shareholder/partner’s share from their estate.

Business Protection

You are now leaving the website of Nicholas James Mortgage & Financial Services Ltd and we cannot be held responsible for the content of this external website.