Running a business creates financial complexity that a standard financial plan doesn't address. Key-person risk, buy-and-sell agreements, estate duty on business assets, and the question of what happens if you can't work tomorrow. These need specific answers.
Most business owners have spent years building something valuable. Fewer have a clear plan for what happens to that value if something goes wrong. The business may be the most significant asset on the balance sheet, but it's often the least structured from a risk and estate planning perspective.
What happens to the business if you die or become unable to work? What happens to your co-owner's shares? Would your estate have to sell business assets to cover duty? Would your family receive fair value for your share? And if you've personally signed surety for business loans, leases, or overdrafts, that contingent liability doesn't disappear with you — it transfers directly to your estate.
These aren't theoretical questions. Without the right structures in place, the answers are almost always worse than they need to be. A key-person policy, a buy-and-sell agreement, contingent liability cover, and a properly structured estate can change outcomes dramatically.
Business owners have two financial lives: the business and everything outside it. We plan for both, making sure the business is protected and that your personal wealth is structured independently of it.
What happens to the business if you, a co-owner, or a critical employee dies or becomes disabled? A key-person policy funds the business through that crisis and gives it time to recover.
A buy-and-sell agreement, funded by life cover, ensures that if a co-owner dies, the surviving owners can buy out the deceased's share at fair value without having to find the capital from the business.
Business assets are subject to estate duty. Without planning, your estate may have to sell business assets to pay duties. We structure this in advance so your family inherits the value, not the admin.
Your personal financial security should not be entirely tied to the business. We structure retirement savings, investments, and protection that exist independently of what you've built.
Life and disability cover taken out by the business on essential people. If a key person is lost, the policy funds the business through the transition.
Cover that funds the purchase of a deceased or disabled co-owner's shares at fair value, keeping the business in the right hands without a cash crisis.
If you've signed personal surety for business debt, that liability passes to your estate on death. Cover structured against it stops the bank or creditor coming after your family's personal assets.
Structuring your estate to minimise duty on business assets and ensuring your wishes for the business are properly documented and enforceable.
Your ability to earn is separate from the business's ability to trade. Personal income protection covers you if illness or injury affects your capacity to work.
Building personal wealth independently of the business through tax-efficient retirement structures and investment strategies.
Group life, disability, and retirement cover for your team, structured appropriately for the size and nature of your business.
One conversation is enough to get clear. No pressure, no product pitch.
Without the right structure in place, it can mean a forced sale, a cash flow crisis, or co-owners and family left fighting over what happens next. Key-person and buy-and-sell cover are designed specifically to prevent this.
It's common, but it does concentrate your risk. Part of the planning process is building structured wealth outside the business, so your financial security doesn't depend entirely on one asset.
Your shares form part of your dutiable estate, which can create a significant tax bill your family or co-owners need to fund quickly, sometimes by selling the business itself. The right liquidity and buy-and-sell structures avoid this.
That surety becomes a contingent liability against your personal estate. The bank or creditor can still claim against your estate for the full amount, even though it was a business debt, which can leave your family covering it. Contingent liability cover is structured specifically to settle this, so the claim doesn't land on them.
Yes. Group risk and retirement benefits are part of what I do, structured properly so your team is genuinely looked after, and so the business stays attractive to the people you want to keep.
I work alongside your existing advisers, not instead of them. Business and personal finances overlap constantly for owners, so coordinating with whoever else is in your corner is part of doing this properly.
Book a free consultation. I'll look at your business structure, your personal position, and the gaps between them, and show you exactly what needs to be addressed first. No obligation. Just clarity.