Key person insurance products 2023: One common scenario where this protection becomes important is when one shareholder faces higher premiums due to their age or health condition compared to their younger and healthier counterparts. Equalizing premiums ensures that each shareholder contributes fairly towards the policy without incurring an unexpected tax bill in the future. The importance of Shareholder Protection Premium Equalisation underscores the need for careful financial planning and consideration while executing business trusts, ensuring legal compliance while safeguarding shareholders’ interests against unanticipated costs down the road. Discover extra information on key person income protection insurance .
Tax Treatment of a Key Person Insurance Policy: Key person insurance is an important tool for businesses, ensuring the continuity of the business in event of sudden death or incapacity of a key employee. The tax implications for key person insurance, however, can be complex. In general, if the company meets certain criteria then it can claim corporation tax deduction on premiums paid. Payouts are typically treated as business revenue and are therefore taxable. However, this is not always the case so you need to ensure you take the right approach from a tax perspective. It is important to consider grossing up any payouts to make sure that the net figure still meets your needs after any applicable taxes are taken into account. We at have extensive experience in this area and can help ensure optimal tax outcomes when it comes to key person insurance policies.
The business itself can act as the proposer of this kind of policy if it’s set up in a Ltd format, or each individual owner can take individual policies if within partnerships and sole traders setups. It’s important for businesses to take this kind of measures into consideration when taking out large loans as it helps protect not only the people involved but also their investments should something go wrong throughout repayment period. Making sure everyone involved understands their responsibilities and is aware that there are ways to protect their finances should adverse circumstances arise will help provide peace-of-mind during stressful times.
Family Benefits: If for example one of the shareholders owned 33% of a business and they were to die. To make things simple lets value the business at £3,000,000 and lets say their shares are worth £1,000,000. The spouse would normally be the one who would inherit the shares. But the remaining shareholders usually would not have spare £1 million as a cash lump sum freely available. So the chances are that they might offer the spouse a smaller sum than the shares are worth. Or another option is that the spouse could sell the shares to someone else potentially a competitor. Another option would be that the spouse could potentially keep the shares and get involves in the business. But usually the spouse would have other commitments and would not want to get involved in the business.
Business loans can be critical for a business to function and grow, but without loan protection, borrowing money becomes a much riskier endeavor. Business loan protection insures the debt should an unforeseen event cause the illness or death of an owner or director who was personally responsible for it. By protecting their loan, business owners minimise their exposure and ensure that the lender is less likely to be left with unpaid debts in such scenarios.
Often called key-man insurance this type of policy is sometimes miss understood. It is important to ensure that the policy is set up in the correct manner using the right trusts or structure. There are also a lot of confusion and miss information on the tax treatment of these policies. The policy can be for life only or for life and critical illness cover . In another article we also explore key person income protection insurance. The death or illness of a key employee can have devastating consequences for a business and thus protecting a business from this should be an important part of protecting a business if the financial impact and help the business survive a difficult time. Find more information at Executive Income Protection.
Relevant Life Policy: A highly tax efficient way of offering life cover for company directors. Can now also cover illnesses with the optional employee significant illness cover. Written in trust to ensure tax free payouts. Key Person Income Protection Insurance: Long term illness of a key person can affect both the income of a business and also in many cases the employee also needs paying. Key person income protection can cover the business for loss of income whilst the employee is not working.