Small Business Saturday – Everything you need to know
Next Saturday, 5th December, is Small Business Saturday, a grassroots campaign which highlights small business success and encourages consumers to support small businesses in their communities. Now in its eighth year in the UK, the campaign has grown significantly each year with an estimated £800m spent in small businesses across the UK on 2019’s Small Business Saturday, with a record turnout of 17.6 million people choosing to shop small on the day. Employees with skills that are uniquely valuable to a company’s success are worth their weight in gold, and the loss of a key employee or shareholder can have devastating effect on a company’s morale and productivity and potentially cause an huge financial hit for the entire business. Ahead of Small Business Saturday, to help you in your business client conversations next week, our latest ‘everything you need to know’ insight focuses on business protection.
How insurers help a business cope with the loss of key personnel
Whilst companies can protect themselves financially against the loss of key personnel in the short term, via a key person or shareholder protection plan, such plans are evolving to provide more than just financial aid in times of need. With services ranging from legal advice and recruitment support, to counselling and second medical opinion services among many more providers are increasingly aware of the extra support business clients need in such circumstances and have a range of added value benefits in place.
What financial evidence to providers require on business protection?
The most valuable commodity of many business owners is time, and so advisers will want to make sure the application and underwriting journey is as simple as possible and minimise the number of requests for information made to the business. Understanding financial underwriting limits and what evidence is required will help minimise the amount of paperwork involved and streamline the process for all.
Which insurers offer immediate cover for business protection?
Once the need to protect the business against the loss of a key employee or shareholder is established, it is important to get cover in place as soon as possible to mitigate the risks. In this article we look at which insurers offer immediate cover including, how it is offered, when it will not pay out and the maximum that will be paid. Whilst providers applications and straight through processing have greatly improved, there will always be cases where policies cannot be placed on risk immediately, especially where high sums assured are involved. Immediate cover can normally be obtained on all business protection policies to help reduce this risk.
Who has the most generous Guaranteed Insurability Options?
Nothing stays still for long and circumstances change. In the personal protection world the events that can trigger a GIO increase are usually referred to as ‘life events’ such as getting married and having children. But in the context of business protection, it tends to refer to three scenarios – an increase in the value of a key person, an increase in the value of a partner’s or shareholder’s interest in the company or an increase in the value of a loan to the company. Having plans in place that have the flexibility to adapt cover to the right level in changing business circumstances is crucially important.
Which providers offer the best support for business protection cases?
Selling to businesses often raises the stakes for advisers. Yes the problems, premiums and income are often bigger but it’s probably fair to say that businesses will have a high expectation of quality advice and an easy process. So it’s important for advisers to know what support they will get from an insurer before they place new business protection cases with them as the tools, resources and standard of service that advisers receive from insurers will impact directly on clients.
Watch out for future “Everything you need to know” pieces where each week we will cover a different topic and provide you with the information you need to know to discuss the topics with your clients.
