Executive benefit plans are a fundamental component for corporate benefits strategies. Properly taking care of executives ensures that they will have the drive to focus on the success of your business. If your plan isn’t offering the incentive of a package comparable to what the competition can, then your business may suffer from a lack of talented leadership.
Executive Planning – Questions to Consider
BBG’s Executive Planning service allows for more flexibility in creating benefit compensation strategies which work to satisfy your company’s key executives. When it is time to design an executive benefit plans, it is valuable to consider the following questions:
- Do you want to provide replacement income at retirement based on total (non-limited) compensation?
- How do you want to attract, reward, and preserve key executives?
- How can you replace loss of benefits due to certain IRS limits on qualified plans?
- How do you provide benefits supplementing those under qualified plans?
- Should you defer executive compensation to a later date, including retirement?
- How should you provide benefits in the instance of an acquisition or other leadership turnover?
Eligibility for Non-Qualified Compensation
Qualified executive benefit plans must be offered to a non-discriminatory group of employees. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) requires that executive compensation plans be designed to cover a select group of management and/or highly-compensated employees. A non-qualified plan may be offered to a prescribed group of employees that fit certain titles such as: president, chief executive officer, chief financial officer, senior or executive vice president, general counsel, and treasurer. Some additional employees could meet eligibility criteria based on their duties, responsibilities, and levels of compensation.
BBG’s Executive Planning Services
Well thought out Executive Planning enable businesses to attract and maintain key personnel, ensuring the success and long-term viability of your organization. BBG’s guidance and support with the details Executive Planning will make sure that your executives and key employees are satisfied and encourage them to remain with your company. Our full service offerings include:
- Business Transfer Planning
- Business Valuation Services
- Buy-Sell Agreements
- Deferred Executive Compensation
- Executive Bonus Agreement
- Executive Long-Term Care
- Family Business Succession
- Inheritance Considerations
- Wealth Accumulation
Business Transfer Planning
Planning for the successful transfer of control and ownership of a business is one of the most difficult, lengthy, and simultaneously rewarding tasks a business owner faces. Every business owner understands the dedication, commitment, and hard work that building a successful company requires. Once a company is established, business succession or business continuation planning becomes a necessary process to fortify your company’s future.
A business succession plan can also include selecting a new leader, as well considering the financial and tax aspects of the leadership change. Effective Business Transfer Planning will allow for minimal disruption of day-to-day business operations. To learn more, please visit our page on Business Transfer Planning.
Business Valuation Services
In order to help define what your goals are for your business and the path to accomplishing those goals, it’s crucial to develop an accurate determination of what your business is worth. Business Valuations are an effective way to add strength and credibility to your brand and assist with business expansions. We recognize the importance of your decision making and the factors that go into it as it relates to the value of the commercial, industrial, and infrastructure assets of your business. Our team has decades of experience valuing businesses, debt and equity interests, and intangible assets to help you guide your business to a productive future.
Buy-Sell Agreements
Buy-Sell Agreements are extremely valuable when making a smooth transition of ownership of the business if an unforeseen tragedy were to happen to an owner or partner. A Buy-Sell Agreement outlines the distribution of an owner’s interest if he/she becomes permanently disabled or dies. It enables a business to continue on moving forward after unfortunate occurrences that affect one of the owners or partners.
It works by mandating that each owner or partner will sell his/her interest to the remaining owners, or to the business entity itself. This is executed under terms defined in the Buy-Sell Agreement that we can help you to create. It equally obligates the remaining owners or the business entity to purchase the deceased or disabled owner’s interest. Prior to the traumatic event, it stipulates the formula for which the price will be determined by a mutual agreement among the owners or partners. For more information, please visit our Buy-Sell Agreements page.
Deferred Executive Compensation
One of BBG’s most exciting executive benefits options is a non-qualified Deferred Executive Compensation plan. Non-qualified deferred compensation arrangements allow for employers to reward selected executives without taking on the administrative burdens of qualified plans. In many cases, deferred compensation can be used in addition to qualified retirement plans, and other broadly based employee benefit packages. To learn more about this plan, please visit our Deferred Executive Compensation page.
Disability Buy-Out Plans
Our Disability Buy-Out Insurance plan is designed to provide the funds needed to purchase a disabled owner or partner’s interest in the business if they become disabled. Disability Buy-Out Insurance should be included in any business continuation plan or business succession plan. A Disability Buy-Out Plan will ensure that the disabled business owner obtains a fair market value for their interest in the business.
Meanwhile, it can also protect all business owners from the threat that a disability may impose on the company by allowing them to Buy-Out the disabled owner’s interest at an agreed upon price and procedure as outlined in a Buy-Sell Agreement. For more information on this plan, please visit our page on Disability Buy-Out coverage.
Executive Bonus Agreement
BBG’s Executive Bonus Agreement is another valuable way to help employees supplement their other benefits. We will help you develop a properly structured Executive Bonus Agreement that can be an excellent tool for recruiting, retaining, and rewarding key employees within your organization. In many cases, it is more cost effective for employers to retain and reward existing key employees than to spend time and resources recruiting and training new employees. It can also be an excellent split dollar alternative.
Executive Bonus Agreements may also function as way to help employees save for retirement or, meet goals for estate planning or achieving financial protection for their families. Executive Bonus Agreements are easy to implement and it is not subject to ERISA – a federal law that sets minimum standards for voluntarily established pension and health plans in private industry. To learn more about this benefit, please visit our Executive Bonus Agreement page.
Executive Long-Term Care
BBG’s Executive Long-Term Care plan can be utilized when a business decides to reward a specific group of executives by purchasing a long-term care insurance policy for each member in the group. These executives are usually those who are key to furthering the mission and success of a business. For additional information on this plan, please visit our page on Executive Long-Term Care.
Executive Supplemental Health Plan
Executive Supplemental Health Plans are a compliant and viable option that offer discriminatory executive coverage. These tax-advantaged, fully-insured programs help to maximize the health, productivity, and coverage for a company’s mission critical personnel. These plans can also help attract and retain top executive talent, support executives who are facing family health issues, and protect them during domestic or international travel. To learn more about this plan, please visit our page on Executive Supplemental Health Plans.
Family Business Succession
Many family business owners must face tough questions for the future, but BBG’s Family Business Succession service can help to answer critically important questions such as:
- Could the business survive if the owner became unable to work?
- How should you plan to protect the best interests of the business?
- Will the business be passed to the next generation or, will it be sold before or after the owner’s death?
- If more than one of the owner’s children will own the company, who will have primary control, and what will each child’s interests be?
- If your children are not active in the business, how will their inheritance be affected and distributed?
For more information, please take a look at our page on Family Business Succession.
Inheritance Considerations
An effective estate plan (also known as “Inheritance Considerations”) can preserve and distribute the wealth of business owners, partners, and executives. We employ a wide variety of estate planning strategies which can help to minimize taxes and administration costs, establish trusts, arrange who is to inherit a business, structure charitable and annual gift giving programs, and more. Our Executive Planning consultants lead you through the entire planning and implementation process. To learn more, please visit our page on Inheritance Considerations.
Key-Person Insurance
Key-Person Insurance is an arrangement where a business purchases life insurance for a key employee to help the company survive financially if something happens to that individual. Depending on the goal, the key person policy can be term insurance or permanent insurance. Key-Person insurance can also be used as a way to provide the key person with additional non-qualified retirement benefits. For more information on this type of coverage, please take a look at our page on Key-Person Insurance.
Wealth Accumulation
We begin planning for Wealth Accumulation by performing an in-depth analysis of your personal and family information, your liabilities and assets, plans for your current estate, proposed plans, and life insurance. Professional planning can help to ensure that your assets and finances are in order. To learn more about this service, please visit our page on Wealth Accumulation.
Benefits of BBG’s Executive Planning Services
Effective Executive Planning will protect the owner’s interests, offer appealing incentives for key executives, and also allow for succession of the business when the time comes. BBG’s Executive Planning consultants make the entire process easier. Our experienced benefits professionals can help guide you towards the best solutions for the current and future needs of your business and its executive leadership. You won’t have to worry about missing any of the key details because our highly-qualified benefits consultants will have every aspect of Executive Planning covered.
Qualified, Experienced, and Licensed Professionals
The Business Benefits Group is full service employee benefits and business consulting firm that has been providing reliable and effective executive planning solutions for over two decades.
We work hard to ensure that your executive benefits selection process is made easier due to the quality and diligence of our team of benefits consultants, agents, and HR professionals. By entrusting our team of dedicated professionals with all of your Executive Planning needs, you will know that your company is developing executive plans which will achieve the results you desire.