Employers' Liability Insurance

Most employers are required by the law to insure against liability for injury or disease to their employees arising out of their employment.

Employers are responsible for the health and safety of their employees while they are at work. If your employees are injured at work, or they become ill as a result of their work while in your employment, they may claim compensation from you if they believe you are responsible.

The Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969 ensures that you have at least a minimum level of insurance cover against any such claims. Employers' liability insurance will enable you to meet the cost of compensation for your employees' injuries or illness whether they are caused on or off site. Injuries and illness relating to motor accidents that occur while your employees are working for you may be covered separately by your motor insurance.

A relevant life insurance policy enables employers to provide individual death-in-service benefits for their UK-resident employees who are aged 17 - 71 when the policy is established. The policy, which is applied for and paid for by the employer, pays out a tax-free lump sum if the insured employee dies — or is diagnosed with a terminal illness — whilst in the service of the employer.

Relevant life plans are however available only where an employer-to-employee relationship exists — i.e. employees of a limited company. For that reason, relevant life insurance is not available to sole traders, a partnership’s equity partners or equity members of a Limited Liability Partnership

Employees can use a relevant life policy to provide their own individual ‘death in service’ benefits in addition to those offered by their employer’s group life insurance scheme if such a scheme exists. The premiums paid to a relevant life policy and the benefits paid out, are not included in the employee’s annual or lifetime pension allowances. (Relevant life is a term insurance, so the policy has no surrender value.)

Income Protection Insurance

If you're unable to work because of illness or injury, under an employers group sickness scheme (Group IPI) salary is continued but is subject to tax and NI in the usual way.

The maximum amount of income you can replace through insurance is broadly the after-tax earnings you have lost, less an adjustment for state benefits you can claim. As with all insurance, it is important that you have the right type of policy which provides all that you need it to do for you.

Long-term income repayment policies usually come into play between the time when your employer stops paying sick pay, and when you collect your pension.

Shorter-term policies tend to be used to protect a mortgage, bank loan or other payment. These usually commence within a few weeks but stop entirely after 12 months or 24 months. Short-term policies often include unemployment and redundancy, unlike longer-term income protection cover which does not .

Recruiting, motivating and retaining able staff is a key preoccupation of many businesses. Getting the rewards mix right is an important ingredient in successfully managing such staff. Remuneration menus made up of pensions, life insurance, tax efficient bonuses and benefits are common in well-managed businesses. But they require careful planning and selection depending on the type of business and the type of staff who are involved. What motivates and retains staff at an internet start-up business or a bioscience research operation may require a different balance than at a manufacturing business with a substantial production line workforce.

If staff are the keys to successful businesses then well founded and managed reward strategies are vital. Taking the right advice early on means that the right moves can be made at the outset without having to make them as the business goes along. The result should be contented and efficient staff who are confident that they are getting the most appropriate deal for their time and their labour.

Share protection through life assurance

Directors' or partners' share agreements may provide for the remaining directors to purchase the shares of other shareholding directors should they die. However there is a risk that the remaining directors may not have sufficient funds to hand when a fellow director passes away unexpectedly.

One solution to this is to take out life cover as a source of funding.

To arrange such cover requires the understanding and agreement of all concerned. It will also require some careful calculations to determine how much cover is required.

However, it will be a comfort to all directors or partners of a business to know that their own or a colleague's death will leave the other directors with sufficient support to carry out the terms of their shareholders' agreement.

This type of policy can also include critical illness for protection in the event that a director or partner is forced to leave due to illness.

Key Person Insurance

Directors and employees with highly specialist skills or knowledge are key employees of the companies they work for. To lose one as a result of a critical illness or death can be damaging to the business. That is why taking out Key Person insurance to protect the company is a wise move.

Key Person insurances can provide several benefits. These can include:

1. Paying the costs of a temporary replacement
2. Meeting the costs of recruiting a permanent replacement
3. Covering the cost of death or incapacity of a key member of staff.

The full scope of cover will depend on the type of policy purchased but companies ignore the risks of losing key staff at their peril. Shareholders, bank managers, suppliers and customers may not be so laid back.

Every business needs to protect itself. For most businesses the most valuable asset it has is its people. Without them, a company’s survival could be at serious risk.

With that in mind we can help you take the right steps to protect your people and your business. After all, you already protect many of the important things that keep your business running smoothly, like property, fleets and stock. So, you should also insure your most valuable assets: your staff and shareholders.

Fixed interest investments is the term used to describe Government and Corporate bonds (which should not be confused with ‘investment bonds’ which are a kind of life insurance policy).

These kinds of bonds are loans to governments or companies that guarantee to pay the bondholder a specified level of income (called the ‘coupon’) for a specified period of time. At the end of that time, the bond issuer will repay the capital loaned.

Role In Investing

Fixed-interest securities can form an important part in diversified investments and investment strategies by:

• Providing a reliable income stream and liquidity
• Providing an element of capital security

The risk of fixed-interest investments is that the bond issuer defaults on either the interest payments or the repayment of capital.  Historically speaking fixed interest investments have not provided the same levels of return as equity investments, but the risk to an investor’s capital is generally lower.

As a rule of thumb, the rate of interest offered increases with the risk of the issuer defaulting.

Investment Trusts work similarly to Unit Trusts and OEICs in that they provide a means of pooling your money with other investors. They are however different in that they are publicly listed companies whose shares are traded on the London Stock Exchange and also in that they have a finite window of opportunity in which investors can subscribe rather than being open ended. The prices of shares in Investment Trusts will fluctuate according to investment demand and changes in the value of their underlying assets. They are therefore subject to the same types of risk associated with any product that invests money either directly or indirectly in the stock market but the level of risk depends on the trust’s strategy and the classes of assets held.

The Investment Trust Company may borrow to finance further investment (gearing). The use of gearing increases the risk of an Investment Trust compared to a similarly invested Unit Trust/OIEC and is likely to lead to increased volatility in the Net Asset Value (NAV), meaning that a relatively small movement, down or up, in the value of a company’s assets will result in a magnified movement, in the same direction, of that NAV.

Open Ended Investment Companies (OEICs)

An OEIC works in a very similar way to a unit trust except that an OEIC is legally constituted as a limited company (Plc). OEICs have been operating outside the UK for some time, but only since 1997 has it been possible to operate an OEIC in the UK.

OEICs are not trusts and do not therefore have a trustee. Instead, however, they have a depository which holds the securities and has similar duties to a unit trust trustee.

Most OEICs operate as umbrella funds which means that the OEIC is authorised and then can set up sub-funds without gaining individual authorisation for individual sub-funds. Each sub-fund has different investment aims. For example, a sub-fund may specialise in the shares of small companies or in a particular country, such as the USA. Each sub-fund can also have different charges and minimum and maximum investments. Unit trusts are allowed to do this too, but few do.