The enhancements offer business customers more choice with new cover options. The enhancements include the introduction of:
• Relevant Life Policy Trust – to provide death-in-service benefits where there are too few employees to justify a group scheme or where it’s desired to provide benefits above those provided by the group scheme. Arrangements are paid for by the employer, treated as an allowable deduction and not as a benefit in kind. This results in no liability to national insurance for the employer or employee, no employee liability to income tax with the payments and benefits of the plan outside the employee’s lifetime and annual allowances.
• Draft Company Share Purchase Option Agreement – an agreement to be used where on the death of a business owner, the company buys back the deceased’s shares, increasing the value of the remaining shares while the beneficiary receives the cash.
• Business Protection Spousal Bypass Trust – an agreement to be used in conjunction with a share purchase/partnership protection arrangement that avoids inundating a spouse’s estate with cash which could be liable to IHT.
• Draft Option Agreement for Business Owned by Spouses or Couples - an option agreement to protect shareholders or partners of businesses owned by couples. If a non-working spouse dies, instead of all of the owners receiving a proportion of their share of the business, this would be passed to their surviving working partner. Alternatively, if the working partner died, the remaining owners would have the right to buy both the deceased working owners share and that of the surviving non working owner.
Commenting on these latest enhancements, Gerry Warner, protection market manager, Zurich UK Life said: “These latest enhancements to Zurich’s protection proposition enable us to offer customers a truly holistic approach to their business protection needs.
“Our longstanding expertise in underwriting, including that of large cases – puts us at the forefront of the business protection market. As such, we remain committed to the market and strive to continually improve to meet the needs of both advisers – through offering them the best possible support – and their customers.”
