Is your business as safe as you think?

Ask yourself what is your company’s most valuable asset? The chances are that it won’t be machinery, or equipment, but people.

Without certain key individuals, including yourself, your business would probably fail. When you look at it, your business is not as safe as you might suppose.

Imagine the damage if a director, partner or key individual within your organisation dies, or contracted a major critical illness. Consider the consequences for the firm's contacts; for its funds or expertise. How will the bank, the staff, the customers, the shareholders react?

Responsible management should protect a business from such damage. Business protection planning from Thomas Anthony Wealth Management Limited can help you to do just this.

Death shows no respect for cash flow. Even in the event that sensible arrangements exist for passing of the shares of a deceased partner or director, it still means money must be available at the right moment.

Where heirs are unlikely to want a stake in the firm, preferring its value instead, then cash must be found, and found quickly. Equally, the owners may find the participation of the deceased's heirs unacceptable.

Some firms even have an agreement where shares pass automatically to the remaining owners - so who is going to compensate the heirs?

A descent into wrangling opens the door to the unfriendly take-over bid, a loss of management control and breakaway enterprises. In other words, potential failure. Money to cover the value of shareholdings will obviously be needed immediately.

The damage caused to a business by the death of an owner can be plainly seen - but what of the other key people within the enterprise?

Perhaps a key person provides expertise, contacts or other assets. Either way, his or her loss could prove very damaging. A bank's confidence undermined; a customer's decision to review agreements with the firm; changes to credit arrangements; staff instability - all potential consequences of the death, or major illness, of a central figure in your business.

The cost of replacement could well be high, in terms of recruitment, training and upgraded remuneration. Yet management must prove quickly, to prevent competitors from seizing the advantage.

It needs an immediate and unexpected injection of cash, above and beyond the normal needs of the firm - to fund the transition or replace lost profits.

Statistically; the risk of "death in harness" is higher than you probably think.

Examine the facts:

Business protection planning from Thomas Anthony Wealth Management Limited

The cost of protecting the people in your business can compare favourably with your other insurance needs, and the value such protection brings in terms if business security can be just as great.

Put simply, why do you insure your executives' cars, and not your executives? Which would prove easier, and cheaper, to replace?

We will be able to guide you on matching your needs and business situation with appropriate solutions - together with methods of minimising long-term costs.

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