Protecting My Business

How can we help?

Owner Benefits

As a business owner, you may be able to provide yourself with long-term care insurance and claim the expense (or a substantial portion of it) as a business expense. You may also benefit from sophisticated strategies to use business income to fund life and disability benefits for yourself. We can help you make take advantage of opportunities to provide yourself with valuable tax-favored benefits.

Key Person Loss

You know who they are – the people in your business you count on the most. What would happen if they were suddenly lost or incapacitated? Key Person Life and Disability Insurance can cover the cost of temporary personnel, recruiting and training a replacement, offsetting lost profits, or compensating shareholders for buying out the person’s business interest. We can help you set up a plan.

Executive Benefits

Don’t let your competitors or a bigger company lure away your most important talent! Retain your key leaders with an effective executive benefit plan. We can help you design and execute a plan for 1 to 100 executives, using any of several available strategies that are both affordable and easy administer. Some strategies provide a current tax deduction for the company, and tax-favored growth and distributions for your key leaders. We’ll help you select the right plan.

Buy-Sell Arrangements

As a business owner, you’ve spent years building a valuable financial interest in your company. What happens to that value when you (or a business partner) pass away or become incapacitated? If the answer is selling the business or your part in it, specially designed life and disability insurance can create a sum of money that can be used to pay your family (or your partner’s family) the full value of the ownership interest. We can help you cover all contingencies.

Disability Insurance

How much would your business miss you if you were too sick to work? Even if you’re not the sole driving force behind your profits, bills may start piling up if you’re not holding the reins. Business Overhead Insurance can help cover rent, equipment leases, inventory costs, and even payroll while you’re recovering.

Individual Disability Insurance pays you directly once your claim is approved. You can use the money as you wish, to cover personal or family expenses. We can help you determine the amount of coverage you need and figure out the best way to minimize tax consequences.

Group Disability Insurance is an attractive employee benefit! We can help you navigate the regulations and set up a cost-effective plan, integrating it with supplemental coverage for your key people.

Unneeded Policies

What is a Life Settlement*?

You may have life insurance policies you bought for good reasons – business or personal — but those reasons no longer matter. Rather than letting an old policy lapse, you may be able to sell it as part of a Life Settlement.

A life settlement is the sale of an existing life policy to a third party. Proceeds are less than the death benefit but more than the cash surrender value. It can be an option for those who no longer need or want their life insurance policy or require funds for other needs.

You should consider tax consequences, your future ability to buy life insurance, the length of time needed to settle, and the costs – among other factors – before agreeing to a life settlement. It can get complicated. We can guide you through the process.

What kind of life insurance policies can be settled?

Universal Life, Guaranteed Universal Life, Survivorship Universal Life, Variable Universal Life, Convertible Term, and sometimes Whole Life.

My term policy doesn’t have cash value, so it can’t be settled, right?

Not necessarily. If your term policy is nearing the end of the term period, you may be thinking you should just let it expire. However, you may be able to sell it and use the proceeds for other needs, letting the buyer collect the death benefit.

Life Insurance

Group life insurance is an attractive employee benefit! We can help you navigate the regulations and set up a cost-effective plan. We can also help you set up a “carve out” plan to provide larger benefits to your key leaders.

* Valmark Securities supervises all life settlements like a security transaction and its’ registered representatives act as brokers on the transaction and may receive a fee from the purchaser. Once a policy is transferred, the policy owner has no control over subsequent transfers and may be required to disclosure additional information later. If a continued need for coverage exists, the policy owner should consider the availability, adequacy and cost of the comparable coverage. A life settlement transaction may require an extended period to complete and result in higher costs and fees due to their complexity. Policy owners considering the need for cash should consider other less costly alternatives. A life settlement may affect the insured’s ability to obtain insurance in the future and the seller’s eligibility for certain public assistance programs. When an individual decides to sell their policy, they must provide complete access to their medical history, and other personal information.