The first time I had to write about business protection, I felt intimidated by the subject.
Individual protection was more within my comfort zone — as an employee, wife and mother, I could relate to it better.
Although obviously there is common ground between business and individual protection, I found the former harder to connect with.
My only understanding of running a business was based on what business owners had told me about it.
So, when doing research for my first article on the subject, I was paranoid I was going to get something terribly wrong.
Like anything you start off dreading, this isn’t as bad as you think when you finally take the plunge
I can understand why a lot of advisers don’t want to get involved in it. Protection advisers have told me business protection is more complicated than individual protection, and that you need to know what you’re doing. So, ideally, it should be signposted or referred to specialists in business protection.
But it’s important that advisers who don’t do much protection work at least speak to their business-owner clients about business protection, because we never know what’s around the corner.
The uncertainties of life give us enough to contend with on a personal level but, when you throw in running a business, there’s another layer of potential worries about if the worst were to happen. Would the business be able to pay its employees, service its debts or even carry on trading if an owner or director became seriously ill or died?
Close to home
I have seen case studies in the product literature on insurers’ websites that brought the need for business protection to life. But, when it’s close to home, it’s different — it hits harder.
If you don’t do much of it, addressing it is bound to feel a bit scary
My in-laws spent their working lives building up a family business and, despite some setbacks over the years, it gave them a good life. But in 2022 my father-in-law was taken ill, completely out of the blue.
We all expected he’d stay in hospital for a few weeks, then recover at home before going back to work. But his condition deteriorated and, after almost two months in hospital, he died. None of us could have predicted that.
Luckily, the family business had everything in place to cover this situation. It meant my mother-in-law and the other directors had some financial breathing space while they came to terms with their loss.
Also, my in-laws had been making plans to exit the business and retire over the next few years, so those plans were just modified a bit and retirement was brought forward for my mother-in-law.
It’s important that advisers who don’t do much protection work at least speak to their business-owner clients about it; we never know what’s around the corner
It’s been a long and difficult couple of years, but we have got through the worst of it and have established new routines. My mother-in-law was financially able to continue the work on the new house that my father-in-law had bought but sadly never got to live in.
I dread to think what things would have been like if my in-laws hadn’t given any thought to what could happen unexpectedly, and planned for it, but they’d always been matter-of-fact about things such as death.
I used to feel uncomfortable hearing their ‘When we’re gone…’ conversations. But, the older I get, the more I see that plans like this reduce the fear factor.
Facing fears
I’ve managed to overcome a lifelong fear of spiders by gradually increasing my exposure to them. Capturing them under a glass and putting them outside in the garden, as I do now, used to be impossible as I would just run from the room.
I can understand why a lot of advisers don’t want to get involved in it
I wouldn’t say we’re friends, but I get so many spiders setting up home in my house that familiarity has cured my arachnophobia. The funny thing is, when I lived previously in a London flat I hardly used to see spiders, yet my phobia was at its peak.
The same point could be made about advisers and business protection. If you don’t do much of it, addressing it is bound to feel a bit scary.
But, like anything that you start off dreading or putting off, it isn’t as bad as you think when you finally take the plunge.
Amanda Newman Smith is features writer. Contact her at: amanda.newmansmith@moneymarketing.co.uk
This article featured in the September 2024 edition of Money Marketing.
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