Corporate Planning
Protection
Whether it’s providing cover for Directors / Partners, Key Employees and Employees, we can help you to protect and secure your business.
Shareholder Agreement / Partnership Agreement
Most Directors / Partners do not think what the financial implications are to the business and themselves in the event of their or their partners death or long-term illness. Most businesses do not have a shareholder or partnership agreement in place which dictates what will happen to their respective share. Even when an agreement is in place, it is rare to find consideration given to implementing the right protection products to deliver the requirements of the agreement.
Term Assurance / Whole of Life
Term Assurance and or Whole of Life are two examples of life assurance policies which can provide a lump sum to the surviving owners of the firm, to facilitate the purchase of the deceased’s share.
Trust / Cross Option Agreement
When implementing life assurance products, having the correct agreements in place, such as trusts and cross option agreements are crucial to ensuring that the benefits of such polices are paid tax efficiently and are received by the intended recipients.
Income Protection
An Income Protection policy can provide an income to the business (to cover the position) or to the ill Director / Partner until they are fit to return to work (or any earlier pre-determined period).
Relevant Life
Relevant life policies can also be useful for Directors (or key employees), which allow life assurance policies to be paid by the business, with the proceeds paid into a trust for the ultimate beneficiaries. Premiums are usually an allowable deductible expense, whilst the proceeds are usually free from tax for the beneficiaries.
Some providers allow the option of a lump sum to be paid in the event that you suffer a ‘critical illness’, this can be in conjunction with life cover or as a standalone policy. This can provide funds to allow the business to operate whilst the key Director / Employee is recuperating.
Private Medical Insurance
Private Medical Insurance is designed to fully / partially meet the costs of private medical treatment for you and your family. This can reduce treatment waiting times and potentially offer access to more specialist treatments.
Employees
Life Assurance / Income Protection and Private Medical insurance can be provided for employees, to provide protection for the firm and / or can be a valuable cost-effective benefit for all employees. By arranging cover on a group basis, premiums can be collectively lower than individual arrangements. Ancillary benefits such as employee assistance at work schemes can provide valuable resources to a firm if they have to deal with an employee who is off work.
Retirement Planning
Most business owners view their business as their pension / retirement planning, they usually do not consider a “Plan B” or how they will ultimately exit the business.
Your financial plan will highlight any shortfalls that you may have along with considerations on how this can be addressed.
This could include tax efficient options for removing capital from the business, corporate investment solutions, review of existing arrangements or switching out of a poorly performing fund.
Pensions
Personal Pensions are a tax incentivised savings vehicle for retirement, with contributions often being an allowable tax-deductible expense for the business. Other complex arrangements such as a Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) or a Small Self-Administered Scheme (SSAS) allow a wider range of investment options, even allowing you to borrow funds within the structure to help you potentially purchase your corporate premises.
Review
It is important to have your savings working as hard as possible for you, therefore it’s imperative that you review not only the contract but also the investment fund(s) utilised within your contracts.
Billions of pounds remain languishing in underperforming funds, where a simple fund switch to an alternative fund would potentially provide a higher investment return.
Our Portfolios
At Howard Wright we provide a range of risk focused actively managed investment portfolios which are designed to assist our clients in achieving their investment objectives.
Sometimes it will be advisable to retain funds within the business. This does not mean that the capital needs to sit in a low interest business account.
There are a range of investment contracts available for businesses so that they can access the Howard Wright investment portfolios.
The value of investments and the income derived from them can fall as well as rise. You may not get back what you invest.
Advice to Employees
Howard Wright can also provide valuable advice to your company’s employees on their own retirement planning. This can focus on individual arrangements as outlined above and / or the provision of group arrangements, such as meeting your legal obligations under auto-enrolment legislation.
Estate Planning
For business owners, estate planning is usually ensuring that their corporate interests as well as their personal assets are left to their chosen beneficiaries in the event of their death.
Will
A Will is the recommended starting point for most of our clients, who incorrectly believe that their spouse or next of kin will automatically inherit the whole of their estate in the event of their death. As part of your plan we review any existing Wills that you have in place or recommend alteration and amendments. If a new Will is required, our team of fully qualified Will writers are here to help you.
Corporate Agreements
We review Corporate agreements, such as Shareholders / Partnership / Cross Option Agreements and Articles of Association ensuring that these are suitable and meet your wishes. Also ensuring sufficient provision is in place to deliver these wishes (see protection section).
If you are looking to sell your business, then your adviser will assist you in the best course of action for the proceeds. Howard Wright will guide you through this process, maximising reliefs such as rollover and business property relief along with personal allowances such as inheritance tax exemption.
The Financial Conduct Authority does not regulate Tax Advice, Will Writing, Estate Planning, Trusts and some elements of Automatic Enrolment.
What to do next?
To discuss your retirement planning or any other area you require advice. You can call us on 0345 688 4939 or fill in our enquiry form below, it only takes 20 seconds to complete.
Once you have done this one of our Chartered Financial Planners will then contact you as soon as possible, to discuss our Retirement planning process and how we can help you achieve your goals and objectives.
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