Building a successful business is a great accomplishment, but protecting the business (& subsequently, your family) from unanticipated events is an entirely different challenge.
Our Services for Business Owners & Incorporated Professionals
Risk Management & Tax Planning for Owner(s) of Businesses in Greater Vancouver and throughout BC.
Corporate-Owned Life Insurance
It comes as a surprise to those not well-versed in the insurance industry that a corporation can own a life insurance policy on the life of a shareholder or key employee. There are a myriad of tax advantages and estate planning benefits to corporate-owned life insurance, but above all else, it comes down to protecting the business you worked so hard to build.
Read our article on corporate-owned life insurance.
Split-Dollar Critical Illness Insurance
Business owners have a lot on their plate, so when proactive tax planning and risk management strategies can be combined, it is worth considering. Integrating a valuable form of health insurance with the potential to extract funds out of your corporation on a tax-free basis? Split-dollar critical illness insurance is a concept every business owner needs to look at.
Read our article on split-dollar C.I.
Shareholder Agreements: Buy-Sell Funding
What is your business worth if you are no longer there to run it? If you have partners in the business, what will happen if one of them suddenly exits the business or their spouse now has control of their shares? Every shareholder agreement should outline the scenarios for handling the purchase or sale of shares, called buy-sell provisions, and insurance is often the ideal mechanism to facilitate this.
Read our article on buy-sell funding.
Individual Pension Plan
An Individual Pension Plan, or IPP, can be viewed as a corporate RRSP. IPP’s are a defined benefit pension plan for shareholders of a private corporation. If you are between the ages of 45 and 65, pay yourself a salary (T4 income) consistently over $100k/year, and have maximized your RRSP contributions, an IPP may be a great option for you.
Read our article on IPPs.
Health Spending Account
There are various names for this product (Private Health Services Plan is commonly used) but officially it is called a Health & Welfare Trust. In layman’s terms, it is a mechanism for a business owner to manage their medical expenditures on a tax-effective basis. The Health Spending Account takes personal extended health and dental costs and turns them into eligible business expenses. These are also useful for businesses with a small number of employees.
Read our article on Health Spending Accounts.
Risk Management for Businesses in Port Moody, BC & Greater Vancouver
Group Benefit Plans
We design and implement customized health and dental plans for businesses of all sizes. We work with our clients to secure competitive rates and strive to limit the dreaded premium increase on renewal. Recent studies have shows employees are more concerned than ever about a well-rounded benefit plan – don’t fall behind your competitors by having a lackluster or non-existent benefit plan.
Read our article on benefit plans.
Key Person Insurance
What would happen to your business if your top employee was no longer able to come to work? The answer is, income would undoubtedly suffer. Key Person Insurance is designed to help businesses offset lost income directly related to losing the services of a crucial employee or member of the company. This absence can be caused by injury, illness, or death. This provides funds for the business to hire or train a replacement and keep the lights on while adapting to the new reality.
Read our article on Key Person Insurance.
Business Overhead Expense / Loan Protector
Just because a business owner is unable to work does not mean the expenses do not stop. Rent, wages, memberships, debt servicing and subscriptions are just some of the ongoing overhead a business faces in the day-to-day operations. Business overhead expense insurance provides funding to a business to cover those ongoing expenses in the event of an injury or illness to the business owner. A similar concept is also available to cover loans and other debt. The premiums are a tax-deductible business expense.
Implementation
Some of the concepts listed above involve high-level legal and tax planning. Our team will work with your professional advisors (if applicable) to ensure all parties are on the same page and working as a cohesive unit when implementing insurance-based corporate planning solutions.