Are you a business owner? Do you know the Dos and Don'ts of Business Owner Retirement Planning and Succession? Do you know how to avoid the taxation traps of employer owned life insurance?

In this webinar you will learn:
*What a Business Continuation Strategy Is
*Why a Buy-Sell Agreement Is Needed
*What Some of the Planning Issues Are
*How To Use a Cash Value Life Insurance Policy To Fund a Buy - Sell Agreement
​*What Commercial Premium Financing Is
*The Benefits of Commercial Premium Financing
​*Receive a Free eBook For Attending

If you would like help from a professional who can guide you, JenniferLangFinancialServices.com can assist you. Connect directly with a financial services professional. You can request a personal strategy session to discuss your needs and goals.

At JenniferLangFinancialServices.com our goal is to educate consumers and help them learn the facts about the benefits of financial planning and estate planning with life insurance and annuities.

JenniferLangFinancialServices.com specializes in Business Loans, Key Man Insurance, Premium Financing, Life Insurance and No-Market Risk Annuities.

 ​Protect Your Business. Protect Your Retirement.
As a business owner who has spent a lifetime building your success, you’re probably thinking about turning that asset into cash so you can enjoy retirement. You are not alone. According to the Exit Planning Institute, more than 8 million privately held companies will be sold over the next 9-12 years.

Whether you’re planning to retire soon or later on, it’s important to solidify the value of your business by protecting your interest as you begin to think about the transition. Careful planning can help you achieve this.

Talk to us about business succession planning today. Click here to Learn More......

What If Your Business Partner Told You:
​"I'm going away forever. Collect our accounts receivable, complete our contracts, sell our assets, pay off our creditors, and give my spouse half of what's left. If there isn't enough money to pay our debts, you'll have to make up the difference."

You'd think your partner was crazy, right?
This is exactly what would happen if your partner were to die tomorrow--
unless you were prepared.

Life insurance provides an easy, affordable solution to this common problem.
Buy-sell agreements make sure your business stays in the right hands. 
Click here to see how inexpensive it is to protect the future of your business.

Have You Planned for the Future of Your Business?

Everything you worked to build could be gone tomorrow if you passed away unexpectedly.

What would happen to your business without you?
Life insurance should play a key role in reducing risk to both the business and your family.

Insure yourself and your business against the unexpected with life insurance.

Key man insurance and buy-sell agreements ensure your business continues, no matter what happens to you and your most important employees.

For some time now, small business owners and their employees have had only a limited menu of effective workplace retirement-saving options.

High plan fees and other barriers have kept traditional retirement planning tools, such as 401(k)s, and income tools, such as annuities, beyond their reach.

A new bill, recently passed by the House of Representatives, aims to level the playing field for small businesses. It would also change some rules for required minimum distributions, or RMDs, which could help simplify retirement distribution planning.

The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act (the “SECURE” Act) passed the House by a 417-3 vote in late May.

Now it’s on track to move forward to the Senate. With unprecedented bipartisan support in both houses, the bill is expected to have a good chance of sailing through.

If the president signed it into law – or if Congress overturned a presidential veto – the Act would represent the most substantial changes to the U.S. retirement landscape in a decade.

The Big Retirement Savings Gap
While statistics in this area vary, an estimated 63% of full-time American workers participate in an employer plan, according to the Investment Company Institute (ICI).
Institute analysis of tax data showed that, in 2014, two of every three workers aged 26-64 participated or had a spouse who participated in a plan.

Other studies show that participation from American workers could be as low as 40%. Taking the rosiest figure of 63% still leaves almost 30% of employees who either aren’t participating or don’t have access to such a plan.

Addressing the Retirement Shortfall
Assuming their current business or employment earnings meet their lifestyle standards, Americans will need to plan for at least 25-30 years of income for a comfortable retirement. But if statistics are any indicator, many Americans haven’t saved anywhere near that amount.

In a 2018 study, Northwestern Mutual found that 21% of Americans have no retirement savings and 10% have less than $5,000 in savings.

Another eye-opening statistic from that study: One-third of baby boomers approaching retirement have between zero dollars and $25,000 set aside.

New Options for American Workers
The SECURE Act is being heralded because it provides cost efficiency to small employers. With the legislation passing, they could band together to offer the same 401(k) plan to their workers.

It would essentially lift the financial burden of creating and managing a company-specific 401(k) plan. This is what has kept a majority of small employers from providing this retirement savings solution.

By potentially easing the fiduciary liability for small business owners, proponents believe many more employers will be open to offering a retirement savings plan. In turn, workers would have a greater ability to build their nest eggs, reducing the likelihood that they would outlive their savings.

And the SECURE Act doesn’t just address the needs of full-time workers. It includes provisions that make it possible for the nation’s estimated 27 million part-time workers to access employer retirement plans.

The Act incentivizes participation from employers by enhancing tax credits for those offering plans with automatic enrollment and auto-escalation of contributions.

Employees will be encouraged to participate with automatic contributions and low-cost savings accounts.

Annuities Available Inside Employer Retirement Plans?
Sec. 204 of the bill proposes to ease employer liability for selecting in-plan annuity providers.

It would update the “safe harbor” provision for 401(k) plan sponsors under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.

This revision is expected to increase employee access to annuities as lifetime income options. Right now, the vast majority of employer plans require you to purchase annuities outside of them.

Retirement experts say that this increased access to annuities can help investors better manage the risk of outliving their retirement money – and all the multiplied risks that come with it.

And not only that, retirement investors would have more options for principal protection and lower-risk tax-deferred accumulation.

Rethinking Required Minimum Distributions
IRS tax rules don’t let you keep retirement funds in your account indefinitely. To begin your withdrawals, the IRS created the annual Required Minimum Distribution.

This is the minimum amount you must withdraw from your retirement plan account, IRA, SIMPLE IRA, or SEP IRA, beginning when you reach age 70.5.  Roth IRAs don’t require withdrawals until after the death of the owner.

This withdrawal is included in your taxable income. And what is exempted? Any funds that were taxed before (your basis) or that are received tax-free, such as qualified distributions from designated Roth accounts, according to the IRS.

The SECURE Act would delay this requirement from age 70.5 to age 72. This could help the tax burden of those who wouldn’t need the taxable income from their retirement accounts, should they already have sufficient cash-flow from other sources.

Other proposed changes to RMDs include exempting owners of smaller accounts, for example those with less than $100,000, from withdrawal requirements.

Changes Expected for Inherited Retirement Accounts
There are also potentially significant changes to how retirement plans like 401(k)s, traditional IRAs, and Roth IRAs are inherited.

Plan owners’ beneficiaries generally spread distributions over their own life expectancy. The Act currently calls for beneficiaries to ‘distribute’ the inherited account over a shorter 10-year period.

Some experts point to this potential development as a tax-generating move that would drain large IRA inheritances more rapidly.

Smaller inherited accounts are absorbed by beneficiaries relatively quickly. The potential demise of the “Stretch” IRA or retirement account mirrors the Supreme Court ruling that inherited accounts don’t qualify as retirement accounts.

Therefore, extending tax benefits through a beneficiary’s retirement will likely be taken off the table.

Setting Up Your Own Retirement Success
We will all be watching the trajectory of the SECURE Act, as it could bring welcome changes to the American retirement system.

But for the good it can bring, this latest hurrah in Washington drives home an unavoidable truth. The best determinant of your retirement success are in the steps you take. Retirement is a personal responsibility now more than ever.

If you haven’t yet put your retirement financial strategy in place – or you want a second opinion of how your strategy might be stronger – financial professionals at WFGInsuranceQuotes.com can assist you.

Connect with someone directly. You can request a free consultation to discuss your goals, concerns, and current financial progress.

As a business owner, you may have often wondered which life insurance policies can best be utilized for your specific purposes. Universal life insurance is an idea that offers several interesting and beneficial components. The most notable are flexibility and adjustability.

Flexibility and Cash Flow
The flexibility built into universal life allows the business owner to miss a premium payment or change the amount of premium paid. Of course, this built-in flexibility may affect the ability of the policy to meet the desired goals for which it was purchased. Thus, it is important to remember that this flexibility also requires monitoring from time to time to be certain sufficient cash is deposited in order for future cash flow to be available when needed.

Adjusting Benefits
The face amount of a policy (the death benefit) can be adjusted upwards and even downwards to some extent. When increasing the face amount, it is important to give full consideration to providing sufficient premiums to maintain adequate cash values.

​Interest and Expense
Universal life is unlike traditional life insurance policies, particularly when you examine the way in which interest is credited and expenses are charged. Under a universal life policy, interest is credited directly to the cash value account and the insurance company typically reserves the right to change the current interest rate. Some insurance companies use U.S. Treasury bills as a guideline for their product to keep its rate of return competitive with savings vehicles such as certificates of deposit (CDs) and annuities. While the current interest is not guaranteed, most companies do guarantee a minimum rate.

A variety of actuarial methods are used to determine charges for mortality and expenses. The charges are not guaranteed and can change, just as the interest rate changes, to reflect current performance. But, like interest rates, mortality and expense charges are typically guaranteed at a stated level—higher, of course, than the “current” charges that can be changed.

Given all of these features, business owners commonly wonder—“When is universal life the right choice for my business?”

Working Examples
You might want to consider using universal life for a “true” deferred compensation arrangement in which employers use employee deferrals to help purchase life insurance to informally fund the future benefit promised to plan participants. The reason universal life fits like a glove is because of the flexibility in premium payments. The payments can fluctuate with deferrals which themselves vary (e.g., annual bonuses). They can even skip a year and payments can be altered for each employee in the deferred compensation plan.

If you are the owner of a new business, this flexibility will allow you to adjust premium payments to help meet the cash flow needs of your company. In addition, universal life offers a convenient and easy way to increase coverage while using a single policy—as opposed to adding multiple policies.

Another method is to use universal life in place of group term insurance and “carve out” a group of employees for this special benefit. Depending on plan design, executives may own the policy and take it with them when they leave the company. The policy provides cash values to help fund retirement benefits, and can be kept in force long after retirement. The adjustability of universal life allows it to grow, tracking a salary-based formula for example.

In the past, we’ve talked about the importance of being prepared for retirement. Of course preparation is different for everyone. For one, women will have different retirement needs and goals than men. 

It also depends on what employment capacity you’re in. If you’re employed by a large company, for instance, you may have a retirement pension plan via your employer (though these sorts of perks from employers are disappearing). But what about planning for retirement if you’re self-employed?

According to various data sources, there are roughly 10 million self-employed Americans – from business owners and independent contributors to freelancing professionals. In a recent TD Ameritrade survey, around 55% reported they’re behind on retirement savings. On the whole, baby boomers have an average windfall of being $335,000 down from their retirement savings objective.

What, then, are the self-employed to do? Read on for some helpful tips.

Different Options for Self-Employed Americans

As a baseline, financial professionals recommend putting away tens of thousands of dollars if you can. But for many self-employed individuals, this may not be viable – putting away a few thousand in a retirement account will still help toward accumulating sufficient retirement funds.

There are a number of vehicles available to the self-employed in the form of retirement accounts:

• Roth IRAs – Roth IRAs are an ideal vehicle for many people, as account distributions once you turn 59.5 years old are tax-free. Contributions themselves aren’t tax-deductible, but in contrast traditional IRA account distributions are taxable. So there’s a trade off. The contribution limit is set at $5,500 for 2015 and 2016 – for people over 50, it’s set at $6,500.
​
• Traditional IRAs – In a traditional IRA, self-employed persons have the benefit of their contributions being fully deductible – however, they can’t have a spouse covered by a workforce retirement plan. In addition, contributions can’t exceed gross income. It’s also important to keep in mind distributions with this account are taxable once you hit 59.5.

• SEP IRAs – If your income exceeds $131,000, you can’t contribute to a Roth IRA. An SEP IRA or a Simple IRA may be good alternatives. They’re both accounts that are setup by an employer (the self-employed party, of course) for the employee (again, the self-employed person). An SEP IRA enables you to contribute up to 25% of your income, up to a maximum limit of $53,000.

With a Simple IRA, you can stock away all of your net earnings (which is calculated using an IRS-developed formula) up to $12,500 in 2015 and 2016. The account also allows for an “employer match” of up to 3% of income. For people who are 50 years old and above, they can put away up to $15,500.

• 401(k)s – A 401(k) may be another suitable option. Like with a Simple IRA, you can make contributions as employee and employer. The employee pretax limit for contributions for 401(k)s is set at $16,000 in 2015 and 2016; for people aged 50 and over, it’s set at $24,000.

What about High-Income Earners?

For people who are higher income earners or looking to meet retirement savings goals within the space of a few years, a defined-benefit plan may be ideal. However, this type of plan is complex. The maximum annual benefit for a defined-benefit plan is $215,000; calculations are made by an actuary and are based on numerous variables.

A defined-benefit plan also requires annual contributions. So it may not be a good fit for self-employed persons with variable income per year. For some-employed persons earning elevated income amounts, funding a defined-benefit plan and a 401(k) may be an ideal combination. 

What’s the Takeaway?

It’s clear self-employed Americans have many options at their disposal. All of these selections should be investigated depending on your unique goals, current needs, and annual earnings. Unlike employed Americans, the self-employed don’t have anyone pushing them to plan for retirement. For best results, it’s best to seek out guidance from a capable financial professional.

When you're ready for personal guidance, WFGInsuranceQuotes.com can help you. Connect directly with an independent financial professional, and request a personal strategy session to discuss your needs and goals.

​As a small business owner or an entrepreneur, you are used to taking the lead. But there is one frontier you may still need to master… the future of your retirement. That is a matter of doing what you can to ensure all your hard work leads to your ideal retirement lifestyle.

While a 401(k) plan is the dominant retirement bedrock for employed Americans, small business owners are in a different boat. You are your own employer.

So whether you have zero or 100 employees, you must make the choice to act toward building a strong financial future for yourself. Depending on the workplace benefits of your organization, you may also impact those aiding you in your entrepreneurial dream.   

And Social Security benefits can help, but only to a point. A motivating factor for building up retirement savings is the fact that, as an entrepreneur, you bring home a certain level of income. Portfolio holdings, personal assets, and savings most likely will play into your needs as a high-income household, as Social Security can only go so far.
  
Not only that, chances are you make more than the income limit placed by Social Security. For 2019, the maximum amount of taxable earnings is $132,900, up from $128,400 in 2018.
And what is another focal point for small business owners? An over reliance on their business as their retirement safety net. But time and again, historical data has shown this to be true: It’s risky to put all of your eggs – namely, your retirement and financial comfort – into one basket.

Reinvesting Rather Than Planning for Retirement?
Don’t have an established retirement plan? You aren’t alone.

In a recent survey by online business community Manta, 34% of entrepreneurs said they don’t have a retirement plan. Not making enough profit to save for retirement and funneling money back into the business were the most common reasons why that they cited.

Those findings reflect what surveyors have uncovered in other studies. In another survey by New York Life, small business owners said they strongly rely on their businesses for their future retirement outlooks. More than 40% reported that their companies “would be their retirement plans.”

While an improved economy might suggest more opportunities for entrepreneurs to sock money away for their golden years, the reverse is actually true. In a 2013 study by TD Ameritrade, only 28% of small business owners weren't contributing to any savings plan.

Why Aren't Small Business Owners Saving for Retirement?
What could be behind this rise in retirement unreadiness? For many small business owners, simply the time investment. It’s a never-ending rush to start a business and keep it running.
With many business and life priorities competing for attention, entrepreneurs often focus on the activities that move the needle forward for their companies. And what could be some other factors? Current business structures, net-worth that is tied up in business equity, and the inherent complexities of planning for successful people's affairs are among the potential detractors.

​If you are a business owner, and your profitability is dependent on the special skills, experience, talent or connections of a key person in your company, watch this video to learn how you can protect the profitability and value of your business from the loss this individual.

​More than 2 million employees between the ages of 25 and 55 die every year. And more than 2 million others are permanently disabled.

But when a  business loses one of its "key" people, the people most responsible for its competitive advantage to cancer, or a heart attack, or a traffic accident, the effects on the business can be costly. As well as disruptive.

Because your best people have unique talents. Special proficiencies. Technical knowledge. Influential connections, and years of experience. Which is, what makes them so valuable to your business.

And, if you abruptly lose your best salesperson, your best designer, or your best engineer, you also lose sales. Lose revenue and lose customers to your competitors.

But these people cannot simply be replaced like other employees. And, their loss can affect your company's profitability, its customer relationships, its market position, and its credit lines, as well as shareholder confidence. And, employee morale.

So what's the solution? A capital infusion of tax free money paid directly to the business, to compensate for the loss of that person's value.

Tax free money. To recruit and compensate a capable replacement. As well as replace any revenue loss during the transition.

The solution is tax free money. To continue paying that person's salary every month until he or she can recover from their illness or injury.

Tax free money. To assure creditors and customers, employees, and shareholders, that your business will continue as usual.

The solution is "key man" insurance. And, it's similar to the property, casualty, and liability coverage that protects your business against the loss of, or damage to, your buildings, equipment vehicles, technology, records, inventory and materials.

Here's how it works. With the help of your insurance advisor, you first identify the people in your company. Your most talented and experienced people. The people who give your business its competitive advantage, and whose absence would negatively affect the stability of your business.

You would then estimate: 
1) The cost of replacing each of these people. Including the expense of recruiting, as well as compensation.

2) The cost of replacing any revenue loss during the transition period. And it's more affordable than you might think, because you can usually secure coverage for as little as 2% or 3% of a key person's salary, to protect as much as 100% of their value to the business.

You can even get coverage that will refund all of your payments. If they don't die, or become disabled, before they retire. And, without insurance on your "key" people, you are putting your business at risk.

For example, you could be like the wholesale distributor in Los Angeles, whose key accounts manager was killed in an auto accident. The competition immediately contacted all of their major accounts and took several them away. Which cost the company millions in lost revenue that they never got back.

Or you could be like the software company in Boston. Whose 58 year old president suffered a heart attack and was unable to work for almost 2 years. The company immediately promoted one of its vice presidents. Who, wasn't as capable or experienced as his former boss, and made some bad decisions that got the company into legal problems and irreparably damaged its reputation, before the original president was able to return and assume his previous duties.

According to statistics, the risk among any three employees, is that at least one will die before they retire, is 54%. And, the risk that one of them will be disabled before they retire is 83.5%.

So, if you've not yet dealt with the death or disability of a "key" person in your company, it's a statistical probability that you will in the future.

So, ask yourself this. Does it make sense to risk your company's profitability, your customer relationships, market position or credit lines, shareholder confidence, or employee morale, on the probability, that at least one of the people responsible for the success of your business will be permanently disabled or killed in a car accident?

Or, does it make better sense to protect your business with insurance coverage on your most valuable people? Just as you insure against the loss of your other business assets.