For business · Continuity
Business estate planning: buy-sell funding and key-person cover
A buy-sell agreement without funding is a promise. Insurance is how small businesses turn that promise into money on the day it is needed.
In plain words
The agreement and the money are two jobs
Most partnerships have or can get a buy-sell agreement: the document that says what happens to an owner's share when they die, leave or become disabled. Far fewer have arranged the cash to honour it. When an owner dies, the surviving partners typically need to buy a share from a grieving family at a moment when the business is least liquid.
Life insurance written for the purpose — cross-purchase or entity-purchase — puts the money on the table at the moment the agreement is triggered. Key-person cover does a related job: it buys the business time when the person who holds the relationships is suddenly gone.
- Buy-sell funding structured to match the agreement your attorney drafted
- Key-person cover sized to the revenue genuinely at risk
- Ownership and beneficiary structure reviewed with your accountant in the room
- Disability triggers considered, not just death
What we handle
What we put in place
Buy-sell funding
Cross-purchase or entity-purchase cover matched to the agreement.
Key-person cover
Cash to the business when the person the revenue depends on is gone.
Valuation refresh
A reminder cycle, because cover written at an old valuation under-pays.
Disability triggers
The event partners forget to fund, and the one most likely to happen.
Questions
What people ask us about this
Yes. The agreement is legal drafting and belongs to a lawyer. We fund what the agreement says, and we prefer to see the document before writing the cover.
Cross-purchase is cleaner for two or three owners; entity-purchase scales better beyond that because it avoids a policy for every pair. Your accountant's view on basis and tax should decide it.
Then the cover is short. We set a review cycle against the valuation so the funding keeps pace with the agreement.
Talk it through with a person
Our help costs you nothing. We are paid by the carrier you choose, and your premium is the same whether you enrol with us or on your own.
- No cost to you
- CRBC™ · MPA-C™
- No pressure, ever
Get a free plan review
A licensed local advisor, usually the same day.
(912) 555-0148Mon – Thu 8:30 am – 6:00 pm