Own Your Business with Others
As a business owner, it is likely that you and other key people are important to the ongoing success of your business. If any one of you was affected by serious illness, disability or premature death, it could have serious financial consequences on your business. And if your business is the cornerstone of your personal income and wealth the domino effect could be disastrous on you personally.
Your Logan Smythe adviser will address the following key risk areas:
Business Ownership Protection
How to structure your requirements for the buy and sell of your ownership (and other shareholders or business partners) in the business on death or disablement
Key Person Protection
Assessing and working out how you manage the financial risk to the business from the loss of a key person
Business Debt Protection
Protecting your personal assets from the exposure they may have to business loans and liabilities for which you have had to provide personal guarantees
Owners Loss of Income
Making sure that if your income is largely sourced from the business that it is protected if you are unable to keep working in the business. We will also provide you advice about the optimum ACC structure
Succession Planning
Succession planning not only needs to consider your planned retirement from the business but also the potential of an unplanned exit due to premature death or serious disablement.
Here are some things your Logan Smythe adviser will help you to consider when addressing these key risk areas:
About you
- What could happen to the business revenue if you suffered a serious illness or disability and were out of action for more than a few days or weeks?
- How could the business operate if you were not able to be there?
- What personal guarantees have you given on business loans that might be at risk?
- If your spouse or partner became seriously ill, or disabled, or died, what impact could that have?
About your business partners
- If your business partner was ill or disabled, what impact could that have?
- What requirements do you all have if one of the owners suffered a serious life event ? How will you deal with the purchase or sale of that persons share of the business? What structure do you all need to ensure you get the outcomes you need?
About your family
- If something unexpected happened to you, or to someone else in the business, would your family’s current and future financial wellbeing be jeopardised?
- Is the family home and income secure, no matter what?
About your employees
- Whose expertise is the business reliant upon and what could be the impact if they became seriously ill, or disabled, or died?
- If you had to employ a short- or Long term replacement, how would you pay for that?
- Could helping employees with their own contingency plans be a benefit that would increase their loyalty?
We will explore all of these eventualities with you. Then we will prepare a risk management plan for your business.
We will help you to assess:
- The value of establishing a clear “Buy/Sell” agreement between shareholders in the event of death or disablement
- The likely financial effect caused by the loss of a key person and the needs of the business to manage the risks
- The exposure of the business owners to creditors calling up financial obligations
- The options for transferring risk to insurance companies
- If you need a succession plan
We will prepare your business risk management plan for dealing with any issues we have identified. It will be a living document that we will review with you regularly as we know circumstances change. Together, we will ensure that the provisions you have made stay relevant and appropriate for the business and for those with a stake in it.
You’re busy living life. The last thing you want on your mind is the burden of risk. We help you plan for the unexpected, bringing together all the pieces of the puzzle to build a risk plan that works for you. So that you can focus on achieving your business and family goals.
A family is much more than simply a group of people we are closely related to or connected with. It is also an economic unit, typically with different contributions from different members of the family.
Farms are often critically dependent on a few key people for its success. And yet farmers, otherwise so focused on anticipating and managing risk, admit that they tend to downplay the possibility and potential impact of being badly injured or falling seriously ill.
