Business conversations

Shaping the conversation

If you're trying to show clients how valuable business protection would be, you could start the conversation by asking them what would happen to their business if they lost a key person. This helps identify different risks to business continuity and could lead to discussions on:

• The liabilities of the business and how creditors and customers could be affected
• The long-term financial implications for the business
• The financial and practical difficulties of getting a replacement for the key person.

And all of these areas can lead to business protection opportunities for you.

Our sales aid Questions to ask for business protection (PDF) can help you start the business protection conversation.

Matching business protection products to a client's needs

Every client has different priorities, needs, hopes and expectations.

Getting to know a client's priorities can help you identify the areas that need most protection. The risks to the client's business can depend on its size and structure. For example:

• Losing the knowledge and skills of key people - even for a short time - could cause real problems if it means the business can't meet its obligations.
• The loss of a partner or shareholder could mean the other owners face losing control of the business they've worked hard to build.

If you don't have access to a business protection fact find, you can use our calculator to capture the key details of your client's business. It'll also give you ideas on what types of cover are best for their business. 

Combining covers

Once you know exactly what a client's needs are and what they're looking for from their protection, you can use our covers and options at a glance sales aid (PDF) to help you find the right type of protection to suit their needs.

Upselling from a Relevant Life Plan

If a client has a small business, they may already have relevant life plans for their employees. While this type of plan makes sense to protect employees' families in case the worst should happen, the business would still be vulnerable if it were to lose the knowledge and skills of a key person and couldn't meet the costs of finding a replacement right away. If this happens, the families of the remaining employees won't be protected if the business starts to suffer.

If your clients and their employees already have a Relevant Life Plan with us, this could make it easier when it comes to underwriting them for business protection.

Helping Hand

Our Helping Hand service can support a client's business in a number of ways. That means if a client loses a key person through death or illness, they'll have access to a careers specialist who’ll be able to help with sourcing a temporary replacement within 48 hours or a full-time replacement if it’s needed. Legal help is also available including advice on all aspects of employment law.

Helping Hand includes a wellbeing support service, designed to give your client online access to a range of hand-picked early care medical services, so their key people have the help and advice they need to stay healthy and able to work.

Helping Hand is there for your clients, whichever stage in life they're at, and it doesn’t cost anything extra to use.

A Helping Hand with recovery

If, at any time, your client, or their partner or children, suffer a serious physical or mental illness, injury or bereavement, Helping Hand will be there to offer support – even if they don’t make a claim.

They can contact RedArc, who’ll give regular support from a dedicated nurse. They’ll provide tailored and personal support whenever it’s needed, for as long as it’s needed. Your client's dedicated nurse can also give relevant literature, help to find useful organisations, and can organise additional services such as therapies, counselling or a second medical opinion, if it’s needed.

This service could really make a difference to your clients during difficult times and show them the value of your advice.

Find out more about our Helping Hand for business service.

Read our Helping Hand privacy notice to find out how we use our customers' personal information.

Helping Hand is a package of support services and each service is provided by third parties that aren’t regulated by either the Financial Conduct Authority or the Prudential Regulation Authority.

These services aren’t part of our terms and conditions and don’t form part of your insurance contract with us, so can be amended or withdrawn at any time.

This means that your client or your clients family’s access to these services could be amended or withdrawn by us in the future.