Life Insurance - Design Your Legacy
Who depends on you? That is the courageous question at the start of the conversation no one really looks forward to having. The purpose of life insurance is to protect those you care about, the ones you love. It is not about making someone rich, it is about making sure they remain financially whole. Life insurance ensures the careful plans you made in life can still happen, even if you are no longer here to see them carried out. Life insurance allows you to design your legacy.
What needs should be addressed?
How do you want to be remembered?
What impact do you want to have?
The JC Madison family knows from personal experience the importance and impact of life insurance planning. It warrants real conversations and thoughtful exploration. As your advisors we aren’t afraid to ask the tough questions because those lead to the meaningful solution. We get it. It is tempting to just guestimate a number that sounds good based on rough figures so that you can hurriedly check life insurance off of your uncomfortable adulting to-do list. But it is simply too important to be done without complete consideration. If there comes a day when we sit heart to heart with your loved one delivering the benefit, we want it to be one that fulfills your promises.
And if you own a business, you have the needs of both your personal and professional family to consider. Keeping your business up and running successfully in your absence, at least in the short term, is essential to the financial well-being of not only your family, but your partners and employees as well.
Key Person life insurance pays a benefit that can keep cash flow stable, maintain payroll and employee benefits, and keep the debt liabilities paid. Key person policies can also help cover the cost of recruiting and training new executives or employees as roles and workloads shift. If the longer term plan is to sell the business in your absence, then Key Person life insurance helps your business maintain its value and be viable for sale.
In a partnership, businesses often work with counsel to develop a Buy-Sell Agreement which outlines the terms of how to legally and financially address the premature death or disability of one of the partners. However, financial resources need to be available to fulfil the terms of the agreement. Rather than drain assets or equity from the business to fund this need, life insurance can be used. Often referred to as “cross purchase” or “buy-sell” life insurance, a policy would be taken out on each partner with a benefit payable to the business.
FAQs
Whole Life vs Term
Beneficiary Designations