Protecting your business for no matter what might happen, makes perfect business sense.  After all, if you are confident your business is protected you can get on with running and growing it, and not forever worrying about it.  Our key services include:

• Business continuity Planning

• Insurance for your premises

• Insurance for the contents in your premises

• Overall business insurance

In any transaction, this agreement represents the outcome of key commercial and pricing negotiations.  It’s fair to say that purchasers and sellers are increasingly becoming more sophisticated in seeking to take advantage of the potential value that is gained in negotiation and execution.  Our experience can help you to:

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• Identify targets and conduct market diagnostics

• Review, negotiate, bid and close

• Draw up exit plan strategies

• Provide the correct employee insurance cover for after a purchase

• Review employee benefits and pensions post-sale

We have years of experience and expertise in providing advice to businesses about using trusts, mitigating tax wherever possible.  Of course, as with any structure, there are pros and cons to using trusts, but we can work with you to explore the most appropriate structure for your business.  For example, in a great number of cases, it makes real sense to place shares for your shareholders in the tax year before a sale will happen, or even earlier.  This is for Inheritance Tax mitigation and succession planning purposes.

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We can also help you understand how to use trusts to protect your assets.

The importance of looking after your employees grows stronger each day.  Well thought out and provisioned employee benefits programmes can increase your appeal to prospective employees, one of the biggest ways to differentiate yourself from the competition.

And better benefits mean employees care more about the company and do their job well.

Some of the specific things we can help you look at are:

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• Programme implementation

• Audits of existing programmes

• Benefit harmonisation

• Private medical insurance

• Flexible benefits programmes

• Defined benefit pension schemes

• Voluntary benefits schemes

• Group pension schemes

When you choose to offer your employees certain benefits as part of their contract of employment you may wish to mitigate some of the risks.  Rather than bear all of the risks yourself you can choose to take our group risk insurance policies to cover some or all of the liability for death benefits, long term sick pay and critical illness cover.  We can help you look at the following and decide if they are appropriate for your business:

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• Group life insurance

• Group critical illness

• Group income protection

Perhaps the biggest news for businesses over the last five years has been the introduction of auto-enrolment for businesses of all sizes.  Every employer must now put certain employees into a pension scheme and contribute to it.  Auto-enrolment is being phased in and was started with the largest employers.  If you still haven’t addressed this, then we can help, offering general advice and programme implementation services.

There are many reasons why you and your business should have a business succession strategy that puts in place measures if you pass away.  Without the appropriate planning: your spouse or partner or children may not inherit your share of the business; your business partners may not be able to buy out your share; your surviving spouse or children may be obliged to take over the business; the value of the business could depreciate owing the inexperience of any beneficiary; and, ultimately, the business may have to be sold and the proceeds become liable to IHT.  So, it really does pay to be well prepared.

Staying on top of your commitments and having them detailed and easily accessible is vital for businesses who want to thrive.  We can help you understand what you should be reporting on and how to do it.  From group pension schemes to investment portfolios, we can ensure you are in the best possible place.

Our experience means we can help you support your executives directly by providing personal financial advice, looking at everything from wealth planning, to protection, to pensions provision.  Our services include:

• Executive pension planning

• Lifetime and annual allowances

• Cashflow planning

• Wealth management

• Executive remuneration

Ensuring that your key individuals are properly protected makes perfect sense.  What would happen if someone who is integral to the successful operating of your business was no longer able to work?  Taking steps to mitigate against this is something businesses should do.  As well as this, key person cover is a condition of most business sales these days.  Due to the time involved in carrying out the underwriting on such individuals it is critical that you use an adviser who is both experienced in placing these types of policies and all round excellent market knowledge.  Luckily, we are both.

In simple terms, shareholder protection insurance is designed to ensure that in the unfortunate aftermath of a shareholder’s death, the process is smooth and as stress free as possible.  At its highest level it involves writing up a series of legal agreements that set out how shares are to be managed if a shareholder passes away. The benefits of shareholder protection include a safe and stable business plan, support for family members during the process and cover for significant illness and disablement.  The three main types of shareholder protection we can advise on are:

• Life of another

• Company share purchase

• Own life policies held under business trust

This type of service can make a real, meaningful difference to your employees.  Did you know that 1 in 4 employees are suffering with financial problems that are affecting their performance at work?  We can help you make sure your employees are well informed and up to speed on any legislative changes through a financial education programme. 

We can help analyse the demographic of your workforce and benchmark you against your peers, reviewing any existing arrangements to determine if they are suitable.

And we can, working hand-in-hand with you, run bespoke communication programmes to ensure your employees understand the importance of being on top of their finances.  We can do this using the following channels:

• Seminars and webinars

• Workshops

• 1:1 sessions

• Telephone helplines