Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage.

Should you fail to disclose or misrepresent a fact, then you risk the insurer only paying part of the claim, declining to pay all the claim and possibly declaring the policy invalid.

We charge a fee for mortgage advice. The precise amount of the fee will depend upon your circumstances but will range from £149 to £750 and this will be discussed and agreed with you at the earliest opportunity.

Most business owners insure their premises, equipment and stock without a second thought. Far fewer protect the people the business depends on. Yet losing a director, partner or key employee to death or serious illness could hit profits, worry lenders and even threaten the future of the company.

Business protection is a group of insurance policies designed to deal with exactly that.

Key person cover

Key person cover protects the business against the financial impact of losing someone whose skills, contacts or knowledge are vital to its success.

The business takes out the policy on the key person’s life, pays the premiums and receives the payout. The money could be used to:

• Replace lost profits while the business recovers
• Recruit and train a replacement
• Reassure customers, suppliers and lenders
• Repay business debts that may be called in

Key people aren’t only owners. A top salesperson, a technical specialist or the person who holds the main client relationships could all be worth insuring.

Shareholder and partnership protection

If a shareholder or partner dies or becomes seriously ill, their share of the business usually passes to their family. That could leave the remaining owners working alongside people who have no involvement in the business, or facing a demand to buy the share with money they don’t have.

Shareholder protection, or partnership protection, provides a lump sum so the remaining owners could buy the share at a fair price. The family could receive the value of the share, and the business could stay in the hands of the people running it.

This type of cover normally sits alongside a legal agreement setting out how the share would be bought. A solicitor would usually draw this up.

Relevant life cover

Relevant life cover is a death in service style policy that a company takes out for an individual director or employee. It pays a lump sum to their family if they die while employed.

It’s often used by small companies that don’t have enough staff for a group scheme. The tax treatment of relevant life policies is one of the reasons businesses consider them, but you should speak to your accountant to confirm how it applies to your company. We don’t give tax advice.

Business loan protection

If your business has loans, overdrafts or commercial mortgages, lenders may want reassurance that the debt would be repaid if a director died or became seriously ill. Business loan protection pays out a lump sum to clear or reduce those debts.

This could be particularly relevant if you’ve given personal guarantees, because without cover your family could become responsible for the business’s borrowing. If you have property finance in place, our commercial mortgages page explains how we could help on that side too.

Executive income protection

A company could also take out income protection for key directors or staff, paying a monthly benefit to the business if they can’t work due to illness or injury. The business then continues to pay their salary.

How much cover does a business need?

There’s no single answer. We’d look at factors such as:

• How much profit depends on each key person
• The value of each owner’s share
• Business debts and personal guarantees
• How long it would take to recover or replace someone

It’s worth reviewing cover regularly too, because the value of a growing business can change quickly.

How we could help

We’ll help you identify which risks matter most to your business, then compare policies from a wide range of insurers. Where legal agreements or tax questions come into it, we’ll work alongside your solicitor and accountant.

Visit our business protection page or get in touch to talk about protecting your business.

Frequently asked questions