Many businesses will purchase a master life insurance policy on their entire company’s employees. Most often these are $50,000 policies on each and every employee contingent upon working a minimum period of time (like 90 days). The face value is paid out to the designated beneficiary as assigned by the respective employees.
To prevent an uncomfortable and embarrassing separation, the owners should agree on how to separate before joining together. Very similar to a prenuptial in marriage, a ‘Cross Purchase Agreement’ identifies the various business issues to address such as valuation of the ownership position, the respective form of purchasing the departing ownership and time period of payout.
One of the more significant expenses for the small business owners is income taxes. Since most small businesses are tax pass through entities, it is beneficial to the business to have the least amount of net income in order to reduce the tax obligations of the owner(s). This is achieved by making sure every dollar expensed is deductible for tax purposes.
Insurance is a risk reduction tool used in our private and business lives. It is founded on the basic premise that a large group of individuals will cover a catastrophic event for one of the members sometime in the future. In general, the insurance company uses actuarial science (law of large numbers) to calculate the financial cost of accidents over a given period of time.
