Life insurance for business owners

If you own a business, there’s a very good chance you need more life insurance than a standard personal policy provides. You might think of life insurance as a tool to protect your family, but if you own or operate a business, buying key person insurance and incorporating life insurance into your buy-sell agreements is equally important.

The death benefit from a key person policy can cover the cost of finding a new owner or CEO, pay severance to employees if the business goes bankrupt, recuperate business losses, or buy and reallocate the deceased owner’s share of the company.

Why do business owners need life insurance?

As a business owner, your family isn’t the only group of people depending on you. Your business partners and employees also rely on you for their livelihoods.

"If you're involved in the day-to-day operations of the business, it can be very hard to replace the value of a business owner without any monetary compensation, should something occur," says Levi Sanchez, a financial planner and founder of Millennial Wealth, LLC. "In the instance of a partnership, the two owners can buy life insurance policies on one another to ensure the business would be able to hire to replace the responsibilities of the deceased partner."

Buying key person insurance — also referred to as key man insurance — and setting up buy-sell agreements that include life insurance can keep your business alive and provide financial assistance to your partners and employees after you’re gone.

Personal life insurance for business owners

Personal life insurance policies, like term life insurance or whole life, are designed to take care of your family and other dependents if you die. If you’re a business owner, a personal life insurance policy is even more important since you may not have certain employee benefits, like retirement accounts, employer-provided group life insurance, or disability insurance.

You should have personal life insurance for the same reasons other people need it: income replacement and debt protection for your beneficiaries. As a business owner, your needs in these two categories may even be greater than the usual life insurance applicant. Here are a few reasons why a personal life insurance policy is a must for business owners:

Income replacement

If your family relies on your income in any way, your loved ones will need money to care for themselves after you’re gone. The life insurance death benefit can provide enough money to account for your lost income and your other contributions to the household, like childcare and cleaning, while your family gets your affairs in order. When you’re trying to decide how much life insurance you need to replace your income, think of all of your debts and expenses:

• The future cost of college for your kids

• Debts like your mortgage, auto loans, student loans, and credit cards

• Your spouse’s retirement

• Any dependents, including your children or elderly relatives

Collateral coverage

If you took out loans to grow your business, and especially if you used personal assets like your home as collateral, a personal life insurance policy is vital. Those loan payments could be due when you die, putting your family’s savings or home on the line.

When calculating your life insurance needs, don’t forget business-related debts that would also affect your family if you die. Including your business debts in your personal life insurance plan, in addition to personal debts and income replacement, will provide the most comprehensive coverage for your beneficiaries when you’re gone.

Key person life insurance for business owners

Key person insurance is a specific type of company-owned life insurance designed to help keep a business afloat even if the owner or another integral member of the team dies. (These people are employees key to the company’s operation, hence the name.) 

“Business life insurance is just as vital for a business as individual life insurance is for a family," explains Warren Robbins, senior sales associate at Policygenius.

The business pays the insurance premiums and is the beneficiary of the life insurance policy. If the owner dies, the life insurance company pays the death benefit to the business.

→ Learn more about key person insurance and how it works

Buy-sell agreements and life insurance for co-owners

Buy-sell agreements are a must-have if you share business ownership. A buy-sell agreement dictates what happens to one owner’s share of a company if they exit the business. It’s like a prenuptial agreement or will for business partners, setting the price and terms under which the remaining partners can buy the deceased (or exiting) partner’s share of the business.

Cross-purchase agreements

Establishing a buy-sell agreement then enables you to organize a cross-purchase agreement , which allows each partner to purchase life insurance on the other as part of the buy-sell agreement. If one owner dies, the others get the death benefit from the policy and use it to buy the deceased’s company shares.

Entity purchase plan

You can also set up an entity purchase plan as part of your buy-sell agreement. This allows the business to buy a life insurance policy on each owner, and in the event of an owner’s death, use the death benefit to purchase their shares on behalf of the business.

In order for buy-sell agreements to work in this way, you must also have life insurance. Without a life insurance policy to put toward buying out the deceased’s shares, a buy-sell agreement may not be financially feasible for the surviving owners or the business. If the living owners are unable to buy back those shares, it puts the business’ ownership — and survival — at risk.

How to buy life insurance as a business owner

Buying life insurance as a business owner is similar to buying life insurance as a non-business owner. The steps are generally the same:

• Determine your coverage needs, including multiple policies

• Comparison shop and get quotes

• Choose an insurer and submit an application

• Take a free insurance medical exam

• Wait for underwriting approval

• Sign your policy

The difference is that for many business owners, you may need to apply for and buy multiple life insurance policies. You probably need at least two: one to protect your family and one to protect your business. An insurance agent or broker can help you manage the application process and ensure you get enough coverage to protect your business, your employees, your family, and any business partners you have.

→ Read our full guide on how to buy life insurance

You put a lot of effort into building your business and supporting your family. But if you don’t have life insurance that accounts for both, you’re putting each at risk. Make sure you have policies in place that cover both your family and your company: key person insurance and buy-sell agreements that include life insurance for the business and personal life insurance that accounts for your income, debts, childcare, and any business loans for your loved ones.