The importance of Business Continuation Planning

When it comes to planning for tomorrow, as a successful business owner, it’s likely that you don’t just think about your own future; you also worry about the longevity of your company. Fortunately, there’s a solution that can help you protect both: business continuation planning.

When properly executed, business continuation planning can help your company thrive for the long term, regardless of what lies ahead. And it can help to protect your future as well, by ensuring that a succession plan is in place if you or one of your co-owners leaves the business — due to death, disability, retirement, or some other unplanned event.

Implementing business continuation planning using a buy-sell agreement helps you to prepare for the unexpected. That’s because a buy-sell agreement is a legal contract that obligates surviving owners, or the company itself, to buy out the interest of an owner who dies or becomes disabled. The agreement may also spell out other triggers for a purchase or sale, such as the retirement of an owner, the criminal conviction of an owner, and more. A buy-sell agreement also outlines methods to determine a fair price for the deceased or disabled owner’s interest in the business. And, when informally funded through the use of permanent life insurance, a buy-sell agreement can also help your company save money.

The advantages of a properly funded buy-sell agreement are many:

• It establishes a ready market to purchase the business
• It establishes a value for the purchase price of the business
• It identifies future buyers
• It identifies the events that would trigger the buy-sell agreement
• It provides a source of funds¹ necessary to make the arrangement effective

It would be my pleasure to help you with your business continuation planning — and to help you fund it in a cost-effective manner. If you already have a buy-sell agreement, I can provide a complementary review to ensure it is still meeting your needs.  My goal is to help you worry less about the future, so you can focus more on running your successful business today. I’ll contact you soon, so we can start working on your customized business continuation plan.

¹ All whole life insurance policy guarantees are subject to the timely payment of all required premiums and the claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company. Policy loans and withdrawals affect the guarantees by reducing the policy’s death benefit and cash values.

Guardian, its subsidiaries, agents, and employees do not provide tax, legal, or accounting advice. Consult your tax, legal, or accounting professional regarding your individual situation. Guardian^® is a registered trademark of The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America. © Copyright 2021 The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America. Pub9808IN-EM (3/23). 2021-117372 (Exp. 3/23).