Business Planning

Keyperson Life Insurance

Key person insurance offers a financial cushion if the sudden loss of a certain individual would profoundly negatively affect the company's operations. The death benefit essentially buys the company time to find a new person or to implement other strategies to save (or shut down) the business.

In a small business, the key person is usually the owner, the founders, or perhaps a key employee or two. The main qualifying point is whether the person's absence would cause major financial harm to the company. If this is the case, key person insurance is definitely worth considering.

Buy-Sell Planning

A buy-sell agreement provides a plan for the orderly transfer of any owner's business interest. Consider a buy-sell agreement for your business if: You have two or more owners. You want to provide protection in the event of any owner's termination of employment, retirement, divorce, disability, or death.

A buy-sell agreement is a contract created by business owners to help ensure that if one of the members passes away—or becomes disabled or retires—then that person's ownership interest will be sold to the remaining partners or to the company.

Non-Qualified Deferred Compensation Planning

A nonqualified deferred compensation plan is a type of retirement plan that lets select, highly compensated employees enjoy tax advantages by deferring a greater percentage of their compensation (and current income taxes) than is allowed by the IRS in a qualified retirement plan.