Why Business Protection Matters – with Jo Lund, Pangea Life

Welcome to the Bring Your Product Idea to Life podcast. This is the podcast for you if you're getting started selling products or if you'd like to create your own product to sell.

I'm Vicki Weinberg, a product creation coach and Amazon expert. Every week I share friendly practical advice as well as inspirational stories from small businesses. Let's get started.

Hi. So today on the podcast, I'm speaking to Jo Lund from Pangaea Life. So Jo specializes in what's called business protection.

So you may have heard about having life protection, you know, to protect your income if. If you get ill or you. Or you die.

So this is something that you may have set up in your personal life, but what Jo's talking about today is business protection and the protections we need to consider to keep our businesses running should anything happen to us. And also importantly, protecting our family from any liabilities or debt should something happen to us.

There were things that Jo spoke about that I'd never even considered, and I genuinely, after having this conversation, have booked a consultation to talk about this for myself because this was an area I had never even considered. So I'm so grateful to Jo for reaching out. I'm so grateful for her for sharing her knowledge on the podcast with me today.

Do listen all the way through. There's a lot to take in. Jo shares a lot with us, but some really good examples. I hopefully will help it to life.

And yeah, just have a little think about whether this is something that you might want to consider. So now introduce you to Jo. So, hi, Jo, thank you so much for being here.

Hi there. No problem at all.

So can you please give an introduction to yourself, your business, and what it is that you do?

Yep. So my name is Jo Lund. I work for a company called Pangea Life and we basically specialise in business protection for clients and businesses.

So not the sort of business protection that people think, I. E. Public liability, public indemnity, stuff like that.

Which, funny enough, was what you thought, I think, when we first got in touch, and that's the big misconception with a lot of people, really what we look at is actually protecting the key people within that business.

So making sure that that business can still kind of continue to run smoothly and safely by looking at the people and basically thinking, okay, if that person got sick, what's the impact on that business and how can we ensure against the impact happening if they do?

Yeah, that makes sense. Can you. Would you actually mind giving some examples of the kind of scenarios that you mean? Would that be okay?

Yeah, that's fine. So I think of one that I'm looking at at the moment. So you've got a company with three directors.

One of them is very much the one that goes out and gets all the business. So he is the one that does all the networking. He's the one that goes out and sour or the business and feeds it into the other people.

So whilst you've got three directors, one is vastly more important than the other two at the moment because without him going out there and doing that, basically they wouldn't have the business to feed through to actually make the money and keep things going. So if something happened to that one particular person, then things would stop quite quickly and it would be hard to pay other members of staff.

It would be hard to get things going because the other two people are. They're not kind of, not really into networking and stuff. They're not into going out and doing that. They're kind of more sort of designer based.

So they're not happy being out front so much. So he is very much the more important person.

So looking at ensuring him to make sure that if something happened to him that they would have enough money there that they could either manage to crack on for another few months until he was actually back at work and able to work again. Okay.

Or that they had enough money there so that they could potentially get somebody else to come in that was of a high caliber and a good salesperson that could come in and basically sort of parachute into the business and pick things up to keep things running. So that's why we sort of want to look at covering him as opposed to the other ones.

Thank you. Thank you for giving an example. That's just really helpful. So it's kind of thinking about protecting the business from the people side.

So something happens to an individual within your business, what happens to the company as a whole. Brilliant. Thank you.

So let's start before we start talking about different types of insurance, what are some of the risks that business owners face if they don't have this kind of protection in place? So the business you've made, the one you've given us an example of, is a good place to talk about.

You've got immediately you've got losses of income, loss of sales, which is similar kind of thing really. They're linked.

You potentially lose staff because if you've not got the income coming in, then you might have to lay off staff that you might have had for years and years, funding actually being revoked by lenders. So say if you've got a Bank loan and that person was one of the ones guaranteed it and they, you know, really integral part of the business.

And if that bank sits there and thinks, hang on a sec, that person's gone off sick and they might be off for a long period of time and they've got nothing in place to help and just, and to solve this problem, you know, you know, to fill the shoes kind of thing, then they might actually look at it and think, well, we're not happy to lend anymore, so we want that money back. So that can create a big problem. And that, that's also especially a big thing.

If somebody died and there was no insurance in place there that that bank can quite legitimately or that lender can legitimately turn around and say, well actually no, we want our money back because the person who's going to actually drive the business to repay that loan is no longer present. So it can be quite brutal and they can do that in a very short space of time if they want to. That's quite scary, isn't is?

I've been in protection and stuff for over 20 years, mortgages and protection. And I went over to the business protection because I could see that there was such a gap.

And also I was just finding it more and more interesting because it's. You find a lot of financial advisors or people that have companies where they do 10 or more different things.

I did that to a certain extent with mortgages and protection for years.

And then I thought, actually I really want to just nail down this business protection side of it because the implications on businesses and therefore all the people in the businesses are very wide and they can, you know, it can really hit home or hit hard to a company.

So I really wanted to become an expert in this one specialist area, which is why I joined Pangea, because there's not very many of us out there in the country that actually specialize because you'll have like a financial advisor who's qualified to do the business protection side of things. But honestly they're more interested in doing pensions and investments. The reason being that it makes them more money.

So if you've got a really good financial advisor then, and if they are really good, they won't probably have time for the business protection and to do it properly and keep on top of all of the different products and things that are changing because they're busy looking at the other side of it.

So there's just such a huge gap in the market for us and wanting to really specialise in this was something that I've been thinking about for two or three years and then I decided 18 months ago to make it happen. Really.

Well, thank you and thank you for explaining that. And I think it's great to have you on because business protection I think is something that I wasn't even aware of until we were connected.

People are and something I've never even considered. And I am really sure that everyone listening. I'm sure there'll be some people who know what business protection is.

I hope that some people have protection in place. But equally I think this will be a topic that lots of us have never even thought about.

So thank you for coming on and talking about it because I think it's, it's one of those things where knowledge is power and you know, people can listen and decide okay, what do I need?

And actually let's move on in a moment and talk about the different types of protection out there and then everyone can make their own mind up about do they need protection and what's most suitable. So that lends me really well. So what are the different types of insurance?

Business protection insurance specifically that someone can have and then maybe we'll go through each.

Okay, so the sort of. The main ones that we look at are key person protection.

So what I discussed earlier on with you about that key person within that business, but he's also a shareholder among along with three other people. So there's the shareholder protection as well.

And I'll give you an instance of a, of an example of a case shareholder protection where they didn't have it in place. They came to me after the event and that was quite a costly, costly mistake on their behalf. But again they didn't know that it was there.

And then you've got loan protection which is kind of similar to key person, but again because it's the key person that drives that loan. So I'll kind of explain a bit more on that and the other bits of protection that we do, we look at group products.

So say if you've got a business where you've got 20 or more, I mean it can be anything from 20 to upwards really people that you have employed within your business. You can actually get group protection insurance in the form of death in service or income protection.

So there are elements of that that you can do too.

We also do private medical, so we can literally put the whole package together to make sure that if you're a shareholder and you died, that there was money there to, for the other people to buy the shares back. That if you're the key person in that business, that you got money there again, that you, if you got sick, that you can keep the company going.

If you, as I say again with a key person, if you've got a loan and that loan is very much dependent upon that one person, we put the insurance in place to make sure that there's money there to repay that loan if that key person died. But again, if they got sick, get them back into work quicker, hopefully by using the private medical.

So that there is, it's like a whole almost sort of.

Holistic is not probably the right, quite the right word, but it's, it is just like a whole approach that we look at every element of it and then we do things as well where if you, if you're selling a company, for example, there's a, there's an element of risk. Available, unavailable, sorry, there's an element of risk involved. Sorry, again with that.

Because you could sell a company for millions of pounds and then all of a sudden you've got an inheritance tax issue because you're sat there on all that money.

If something happened to you in a space of time within that seven year period that there is, if something happened to you at that point, then there's a huge inheritance tax issue. So we don't just stop at the business if there's more involved, we look at the whole picture. So there's probably quite a lot to take in in one go.

Yeah, you probably can see my brain wearing while I'm thinking this through. Well, let's tackle the key ones each in turns.

We've spoken a bit about key person insurance, but one thing that you said there that struck me is key person insurance is different to having say private medical insurance or life insurance.

So if you have a business and you have this insurance in place and something happens to you, your business is protected but your family perhaps aren't. So for example, there would be money perhaps if you had this insurance, keep the business running.

But as for your personal finances, that's something, albeit something you can help with.

Yeah, key person is very much about that. Money goes back into the business so it doesn't go anywhere else. It goes back into that business in order to keep that business running.

If you had a life insurance policy, that policy, or certainly for group life insurance policy, that policy would go, it would pay out to the family upon the death of that person. There's also another policy. So I'm thinking the more I think about this, the more I think it's probably quite confusing.

There's also another policy called relevant life which say if you have a business with only a couple of directors or even any one director, I mean, I'll give you an example of a guy who I look after. He is the sole director and his wife is a shareholder as well. She's company secretary, but she's not actually involved in the business.

So he doesn't have a great life policy. He has a relevant life policy which is the same thing as a death in service.

It's basically death in service for a key member of a company or a key employee of a company. And even though he's a director, he is actually an employee of that company.

So what you can do with that is you can look at putting one of those policies in place so that his family would be paid out on that. Okay. So if you. So the key person then. So that it goes back into the company, a life policy will go back to the family.

Shareholder protection again, that's done so that it's designed for the money to go back so that the other shareholders can, can buy those shares back and keep the shares within the company. Because what you don't want is for those shares to be sat there with somebody that you don't want involved in the company.

And I can elaborate a bit more on that, but I'm just conscious if I've gone off track again. So push me back on track in my house.

There is a lot. Jo, I'll be honest. I think with Key Person, I think we're kind of clear on what that is.

So I guess you can choose the personal persons that you have insurance against and it's designed so if something happens to that person, you could replace them, whether that's temporarily or long term, whatever the situation.

But it's basically repay, repay a loan or something like that to keep that. Keep the business going.

Yeah. So to keep. I guess it's about thinking about how would the business operate without that person, that key person in place. So what.

Let's talk a bit about shareholder protection and, and what that is. And I think you mentioned you had an example as well that might be helpful.

Yeah. So shareholder protection, when you.

That's if you've got a company where there are multiple owners and they're not related and sometimes also when they are related, it's still good to have some as well.

But say like my director that I've got, where it's just him and his wife I wouldn't really worry so much about shareholder protection with them because the shares would just go to her. So that's not a problem.

But if you've got, like the company that I dealt with, there were four directors, all totally different, not related, anything like that. They didn't have what's called a cross option agreement in place.

And a cross option agreement is an agreement that sets out that if somebody dies or they want to sell their shares, that you trigger that cross option agreement and that has to happen.

So even if maybe one party doesn't want to do it, but the other does, that triggers the sale of the shares or the purchase of the shares at that point. So it keeps things very, very clean.

And it means that if the shares went out to a family member who wanted nothing to do with the business, they can bring them back in. So in this instance, what we have was four directors. One of them had both sadly died. The other three directors were there.

They had no policies or anything in place.

When they started that company, obviously the value of the shares were minimal, really, because they were still building the company up. By the time that company actually got to the stage where, unfortunately, the other director died, his shares were worth £500,000.

So they then had to find £500,000 at short notice or come up with some way of repaying his wife because she had then inherited his shares from where he died. So she sat there with something that actually she doesn't really want to be involved in. She's never been involved in it.

She's benefited from it, obviously, because she's benefited from the income that it's given her from, you know, the joint income that they had. But she doesn't want anything to do with the business. But legally she doesn't actually.

She could carry on keeping those shares for the next however many years. They would have to pay a dividend each year, each month or each year. And at that point, if they.

If they do that, they're essentially wiping out their profits. You know, they're giving a huge amount of profits away to somebody that doesn't contribute to the business whatsoever.

So they were very lucky in that she was happy for them to buy the shares back.

But that didn't negate the fact that they had to find £500,000 in order to actually do that, because that was what the shares were valued at when they got an independent person to come in and value the company and they had no idea how, you know, how much it was worth. They knew it was worth a lot more than it was when they started, but they didn't know how much it was worth at that stage.

So what they managed to do, the company was doing pretty well. They managed to pay out a lump sum at the time, but then the rest of it was paid back over a five year period in the sort of form of a loan.

So any profits they made over those next five years really were wiped out because it was all going on paying back the loan. Now that could all have been prevented by having a shareholder protection policy on each director and then having that cross option agreement.

So if anything had happened to that director, then the funds are there to purchase those shares back. And on that note, it's also really important, and this is another thing I find.

People might set up a shareholder agreement when they first start a business or a year or two in, but if that business is growing and it's growing at quite a rate, they quite frequently don't bother to check.

Because if it's set up by a financial advisor or somebody that's, you know, telephone advisor or something like that, and somebody doesn't actually go in and sit down with them and review it, you might find that again, bit like the.

The company that I just discussed, their shares aren't worth much to start with, but if something happened to them five, ten years down the line, they might have a, you know, deficit of 5, 6, 700,000 pounds, might be less than that, obviously, but we all want a business to grow and to do well. And it's things like that that people don't get their policies reviewed.

And we try or what I try to do is to actually work with companies is sort of another part of their process that they do every year to sit down and go through everything. And if they don't need as much insurance, we reduce it. We don't just keep things as it is for the sake of, you know, for the sake of our profits.

The customer is always at the heart of everything I do. It's the same as when I did mortgages.

You know, if I ended up having to say to somebody, oh, you can do a product transfer and they'd be like, oh, can you do it for me? Well, I can, but it's going to cost you. But if you do it yourself and I'll talk you through how to do it, then you don't have to pay me.

So it, you know, I could have been quite ruthless at times with that and I wasn't and I wouldn't ever be and I wouldn't be in this because to me, somebody's business, like when I ran my business previously, it is your baby and you put so much time and effort into it that you, you know, you wanted to succeed.

And I want the businesses that I work with to succeed and by making sure that they've got the right protections and stuff in place, we can help to do that.

Thank you. And yeah, thank you for explaining all that. So I think I understood.

Shareholder protection gives the remaining shareholders the money to buy back shares as needed. Perfect. So let's now move on and talk about loan protection, which I'm assuming is what it sounds like, but let's.

It is, it is, but it's essentially really key person protection because that loan can be repaid, but it can only be repaid by those key people in that business actually keeping the business turning over so that it generates enough money to repay that loan. So it is, whilst it's under the guise of loan protection, it's essentially a key person policy in order to do that.

But yeah, to all intents and purposes, people say it's a loan protection. So that's a very quick one to do.

Okay, perfect, thank you. So if you have loan protection, do you need key person insurance as well?

If you've got a loan and you don't have the money within the business to pay for it, then I would certainly suggest that you look at doing it. I'm just about to speak to somebody tomorrow who's been given funding by a.

It's a government run or led company, but they provide funding to people in order for them to sort of upscale their businesses and get them to the next level. Now with this lending, it's only, it's 100,000. I say it's only 100,000. I know that's in the scheme of some of the figures that I deal with.

That's not a huge amount, but it's still a substantial amount of money to you and I. And part of their remit is that they have to have some insurance in place so that if something happened to him, the money is paid back.

So yeah, that's, I guess that that's a good example of loan protection. But it's going to be set up as key person.

So I'm speaking to him tomorrow just to go through everything with him and chat through just covering that bit. But I'll Also talk to him about protecting his income, protecting his family, etc, etc. So I'll do sort of like a full coverage of what we do.

Perfect.

And so for example So imagine you are the sole owner, director of your business and you have a loan, whether that's the bank loan or whether it's funding, whatever it is. Does this still, does this still apply? Is it still sensible to have some sort of loan protection?

Yes.

Yeah because if, if you're the only person and you've got family, they're going to be left with this mess when you, if you passed away or if you got sick. So you're going to be leaving one heck of a mess behind.

Ah. Even if it's a business, even if it's the loan is for your business. Oh, I didn't realize that. That's really useful to know.

Yeah because if you think a business you've got a director, the director is essentially responsible for it.

So yeah I would always make sure that you've got stuff in place if you can't afford to pay yourself normally have something in place that's really useful.

And on that have you seen any examples and obviously without giving any details that was give, give away who it was where having this kind of protection in place has, you know, has saved a business essentially or perhaps saved a family from a lot of money to pay.

Business loan wise.

Myself personally, no, not at the moment because I've only been with this company for sort of the last year or so but I can revert back to a mortgage side of one or a life protection policy that I did for somebody a critical illness one that I did for somebody a few years. Yeah, perfect.

I think it's some examples it really illustrates. Oh gosh, this could have happened and then.

Yeah, I mean this, this was a young couple. It was one of the first mortgages that I ever really did.

So we're talking a very long time ago now and I went through their protection with them because I was always very, I didn't feel like I'd done a proper job if I hadn't protected the mortgage and everything and protected them as well. So. So we went through everything and we looked at doing a life and critical illness policy for both of them.

He was in the army and I think his one, it was a really odd one because they classified him as being his BMI being too high but it was the fact that he literally was pure muscle. He exercised like I don't know what. So he didn't want to take his policy because he had Bits and pieces within the army, anyway.

But his wife did because just, you know, she was just like, I've got nothing. I want to make sure that I've got something.

And then lo and behold, about six months later, I just saw something on Facebook saying that, yeah, just to put everybody straight, you probably heard bits and pieces. I've actually been diagnosed with breast cancer. And I was very, very shocked. My first reaction was, right, I must message her.

I didn't want to ring at that point because it was about 9 o'clock at night as well.

And I thought I must message her and just get in touch with and let her know that she needs to, you know, what we can do to help because we've got this critical illness policy in place. And I got a hold of her and she sort of said, well, but it's not going to pay out, is it? Because I'm planning on getting better.

And I was like, no, this is exactly what it is there to pay out for. You know, you're sick, you've.

You've paid out this insurance or you're paying for this insurance policy to cover you in case you get sick and you've been diagnosed with cancer. And this is exactly what it's designed to do. And I still see her now and she always sort of says, what you did changed our lives.

It massively changed their lives because they paid their mortgage off, which they're only in their mid-30s, I think they paid their mortgage off. He was due to actually go out to Afghanistan.

So that tells you how long ago was he was due to be posted to Afghanistan and obviously because of her diagnosis, was allowed to stay home. So she always just says to me, she said, you literally, you, you paid off our mortgage, you took away all the stress of everything.

My husband didn't end up going away because of all of this, because he was, you know, I kept hold of my husband and nothing awful happened to him. And I think that was. That was when I really started to get the, the love of protection because I saw what an impact it can have.

And, yeah, it can have exactly the same on a business. It can have exactly the same on the business. You know, we've got.

One of my colleagues, there was group life policy that they had that paid out to somebody recently, you know, the member of the family. So it's. I don't know, I just.

To me, it's such an important thing to make sure that you and your family are protected because it's not you've gone is who's left behind that you need to look out for. And I kind of think it's a bit selfish in some respects if people don't want to do that.

Because when you see people that are left to pick up the pieces, it's not fun.

No, I can imagine. And how would we go about figuring out what kind of COVID we need? Where do we start?

The best thing to do is just to contact somebody like me, contact us, and arrange to sit down and we basically talk through the business, the setup of the business. You know, who's a director, who's not, who's a key person in the business, who does what role.

So just look at all of those elements, talk about what the plan is with the business. You know, are you looking to getting to build the business up and sell it at some point?

And just talk through the whole lifespan of the business, how the business is set up, what they want to achieve. And that gives us a really good understanding of what we need to look at within there.

So it's not, it's not really any different to the mortgage side of things. I used to sit there, again, I'm going back to mortgages.

I could sit there and have a conversation with somebody for about 50 minutes and you might have 10 minutes of that that would actually be directly speaking about the mortgage. And it's the same with the business.

When you sit there and you listen to somebody and they tell you all about their business and what they've had, you know, how they've got there, what they've achieved, what they're looking to do, what the succession planning is, etc. Etc. All of those things are key elements for us to understand where we need to insure and the points that we need to look at.

So it's not just, it's not just, okay, I've been told I need that, you know, contact somebody and get that. Because we get leads from companies where people think, oh yeah, I need that insurance.

You pick up the phone and talk to them and ask them why they need that insurance and what the purpose of it, what the purpose of them taking it out is.

And nine times out of ten you find out that maybe they don't need that, or if they do need that, they need something that goes with it because, you know, that needs to be looked after as well.

Okay, so it definitely sounds like something where you need to speak to an expert.

Yeah, yeah.

And let's say you're a really small business. Let's say at the moment it's just you, or maybe it's Just you.

And you might have a few freelancers working for you or you might, you know, you might, you know.

So I'm trying to say is you're a solopreneur perhaps whether you have a team or you have people that you're giving workout to, but you're relatively small at the moment. Is this still something worth considering?

Yes, I mean I've just dealt with the lady, it's her and I think three others that I think one of them is. One's just an inter or not just that sounds quite rude. One's an intern, one's kind of working at work the ranks and then the other one does admin.

So it's not, it's not a big company at all. But again there's one person that brings that business in which is the owner of the company.

And when I sat down and chatted to her and said, look what happens if you get sick. Would you be able to get somebody else in? She's like, well I, yeah, get this person in to cover me.

And they'd be able to help because they know how to do my job because I've worked with them before. But it's like, well, okay, how long would you be able to do that for? What cost would that be?

Would you be able to get them in at a normal rate or would you have to pay a premium rate? Because you might have to get them to leave the job that they're doing at the moment. So all things like that.

But I mean if you're, if you're, I mean one man bands, if you're a director, if you're a limited company, yeah, you can look at cover on that. So you can look at the relevant life, which is the one that I served death in service.

So you could look at that because then that gives your family a lump sum of money in the same way that say you worked for a bank or you worked for a big company and you get death in service. So yes, you can, you can set that up. You can also protect your income with something called executive income protection.

So both relevant life and executive income protection are actually tax deductible as well. So that's, that's a really good thing.

And especially if you're like a one man band or a two man band or something like that, then that's even better for you because it means it's can save you money as well as protecting you.

So yeah, I mean, I guess in some ways my ideal scenario would be to look after somebody from inception, you know, or from close to inception, all the way through to when they sell a business. Because you get to know the business, you know the people, you build up a good relationship and you can keep that relationship going.

Does that answer that question?

That does. That does.

I was, that's what I was, I was considering and actually I can see, as you were talking, I was thinking, actually I can see how as just a solo pneumo, you might still want that protection.

Because I can imagine that if you got ill, let's say so you received a diagnosis, or you just happen to unexpectedly get ill and you couldn't work in your business for however long, you might possibly need to pay people to keep things running for you. Or even if you were saying, okay, I cannot work for now, you're obviously then not getting any income.

So I can definitely see need to think about insurance to cover yourself should that happen.

And in that instance, that's where private medical comes in really well, because it means it can get you back to work quicker, hopefully.

Because as depressing as it is, the NHS is not in a great state, as we all know, and trying to get appointments to actually get initial checks and stuff done like that, it's taking far longer than it used to. I can't remember the exact stats, but I think.

Well, I don't really need to tell you or anybody else, I think we all know that it's not great and it does seem awful that it's like a two tier system, those that can, those that can't, but to get tests and stuff done and to get people back to work quicker actually benefits both them, their business and the economy as a whole.

If you think about it, and I kind of also look at it, that if you are putting people through on a private medical basis, it's giving more space for other people to use the nhs, which might be controversial opinion, but it is something that I've kind of.

I always think that with my dentist, I go to a private dentist because I can luckily afford to do so, but that gives space for people to get on the NHS dental wait list, because I'm not on it.

Yeah. And another. So the final question on this, because I think this is one that people will be thinking about is, is.

Is getting business protection, particularly if you're a very small business, as lots of my listeners are, is it something that's actually affordable or is it something that you can only even consider as you start to grow?

No, it's totally affordable.

I did some insurance recently, did a relevant life in the shareholder protection Policy for a couple of guys who are in their early 40s, non smokers, relatively fit and healthy. I think we did 750,000 and I think it was about £29amonth. Yeah.

Oh yeah, that's. Yeah, that is affordable.

Yeah. So less than people pay for this guy probably by a long shot. So, yeah, it's not.

I think people have this perception of insurance that it costs a fortune. It never pays out. The only reason that it won't pay out is if you have done what's called non disclosure.

So if you've not told the company about a condition or something like that that you've actually had or a visit, you know, so this is what's really important, to be totally upfront and honest on any application form. But the only reason they won't pay out is non disclosure or non payment of your premium. So it's.

Yeah, a lot of people that I speak to are like, oh, it's never going to pay out. It's never going to pay out. Well, I've seen it pay out on a number of occasions now, so it does.

And you almost as well, to be honest, you almost don't want it to pay out because if it pays out, I mean, something terrible's happened. So there's that as well. But then I do agree with you that I think it is.

It's nice to have the peace of mind that actually, yeah, should something happen, you are going to be covered or your business is going to be covered or hopefully both.

Yeah, yeah. And as I say, there's.

If you come to me and you say, okay, I'm a sole trader, I need some insurance put in place for that, you'd be looking at just normal income protection on that and a normal life policy.

But when, you know, when maybe two, three years later they go limited company, it's like, okay, great, well, we can look at executive income protection for you now and we can look at relevant life for you now, which we can then make tax deductible.

So that's the whole thing, I mean, about reviewing things on an annual basis and making sure that you know exactly what's going on with that client so that you're offering the correct advice at the correct time. So don't just put that policy in place. So just, just forget about them and you know, don't keep in touch. It's really important to keep in touch.

That's such good advice because I guess as your business grows, perhaps you bring on new shareholders possibly, or you become company or you employ people Whatever the situation might, I guess your needs are going to change.

Yeah.

And even if that happens midway through the year or something, just always, just contact us and let us know that you're thinking of bringing somebody on or you have brought somebody on with private medical insurance policies. I've done one for a company recently. There's about 90 of them, I think. But obviously because it's such a large company, people come and go.

So they just email and say, right, can you take this person off? We've got a new joy. They passed probation the next day. Can you please put them on? So it's, that's what we're there for. And with private medical.

Sorry, carry on. Sorry.

I was gonna say it sounds like a lot of this is very flexible as well. So it's not like you have a policy and it's just in stone for a year or however long.

No, no. If something needs changing, we will change it.

Say if you're covering a loan and you've got key person protection, you're covering a loan and that loan's going down over those, you know, over that, that five year period, will look at it each year and say, right, okay, can you reduce it down to this amount now? Because they've only got this amount left.

I would say probably a lot of other brokers wouldn't bother to do that because once they've sold it, they've got their money, they don't really care for us. It is about building and maintaining that relationship. Yeah.

Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much, Jo, for everything that you've shared.

I've got one final question if that's okay and that would be now you have shared a lot, so this might be harder, but what was your number one piece of advice be when it comes to considering the protection you might need for your business?

Basically look at your business and think about what would happen if a key person, whether that be yourself or somebody within that business, was unable to do their job and what impact that would have.

That's brilliant. Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening right to the end of this episode. Do remember that you can get the full back cast blog and lots of free resources on my website, vickyweinberg. Com.

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