In addition to providing a company pension, many employers provide some security before retirement in the event of death or long-term disability and private medical care.
Group Life Assurance
Group Life Assurance is relatively inexpensive to provide. Normally, all employees of the company are covered irrespective of their state of health. Death benefits can be paid as a tax free cash sum up to the Lifetime Allowance. The Lifetime Allowance has initially been set at £1.5m rising to £1.8m by tax year 2010/11. Any dependant's pension provided does not count towards the deceased member's Lifetime Allowance.
Group Critical Illness Cover
Before the age of retirement, the odds of a man or woman suffering a critical illness are greater than the odds of dying.
But, the statistics are testimony that many life-threatening illnesses can now be successfully treated due to advances in medical science. A person diagnosed with invasive cancer or a heart condition can still expect to survive their illness and enjoy a good life span after treatment.
By integrating Critical Illness protection as part of your employee benefit package, you are acknowledging the value of those extra years to your key people should they suffer a critical illness.
Group Critical Illness is a valuable, tax-free addition to any benefits package that provides lump sum benefit to employees diagnosed with a specified critical illness. It can provide cover anywhere in the world, in addition to temporary absence cover for those employees who are taking a break from work.
Income protection
People give their best in order to build a lifestyle they can enjoy and maintain.
Adopting Income Protection within any benefits package you offer goes a long way to acknowledging this; showing your people you recognise their worth both within and outside of your business.
But there are benefits to your organisation also, empowering you to manage the costs of sickness absence.
In the event of one of your people sustaining an injury or becoming ill, IP enables you to protect pension and National Insurance Contributions, and helps your business to meet its obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act. In addition, it is an allowable cost against Corporation Tax.
And, with rehabilitation increasingly becoming a provision of many policies, bridging the gap and getting your people back to work is a realistic option, enabling you to save on the costs of recruiting new staff.
Key Person Insurance
If a key employee (or employees) of a business dies or becomes seriously ill, it can be a major blow to even the most successful and well established company. In many cases there are often one or two key employees around whom the whole business revolves.
Key person insurance provides a lump sum to the company in the event of the death or serious illness of that individual, which the company can use to recruit a replacement and/or sustain the business during any downturn in trade following the event.
Shareholder Protection/Partnership Protection & Exit Planning
Family firms often have one or two key individuals who own a major equity stake in the business. It is therefore important to fund for the exit of a major equity holder, whether this be through retirement or indeed premature death or illness. Careful planning will ensure the firm's business assets do not pass to an unwelcome outside party.