Business protection Insurance and rock and roll:

Well most of the population hold the view that business protection insurance advice is dished out by grey-suited, grey-haired financial service industry robots and would rather listen to Basshunter’s greatest hits on loop. I was firmly in that category. The transition from rock and roll to insurance wasn’t as strange as you might think. I used to like getting up on stage and making people happy and I hold the inherent belief that what I do now helps people at the worst time of their life, do you see the connection? I stumbled upon and found a passion for financial services and in particular business protection insurance, by accident. My wife became pregnant with our first child and I broke up the band and got a “real” job through a mate working in the industry. Quite happy to suffer for my art, just didn’t think it was fair to make other people suffer. Those of you that have ever seen me play are quite likely to say I was doing that anyway but hey, it’s a matter of taste right?

“Quite happy to suffer for my art, just didn’t think it was fair to make other people suffer.”

I was a BDM for a financial services firm, qualified and became a mortgage broker and then the rebel in me found a cause in seeing how banks had you over a barrel with overpriced, one size fits all, “you’re having it or you don’t get the loan” insurance products. I found I could get a far superior Loan Protection product by sourcing the whole of the market and smash the premiums by 1/4 or a 1/3rd! a no-brainer every time, better for my clients and I was beating the banks! That’s when I really started delving into niche Business Protection insurance products and finding stuff that other people didn’t seem to know about, tax efficient life insurance, share protection insurance with policy add-ons that placed them way above their competitors. A bit like finding that rare 7” single or laser etched picture disc in the bargain bins at Record & Tape exchange, it’s there, you just need to find it.

So, with a mission to spread the word about business protection and the truth about insurance, I present a palatable, informative blog, in a Rock ‘n’ Roll style, mercifully short, fit for purpose, relevant. As a business owner there is stuff you need to know but you want the radio play single version, not the triple concept album.

First point; business protection insurance isn’t complicated (if you know someone that knows). In the same way your Grandmother could pick up a guitar and in five minutes learn to play Stairway To Heaven, most Financial Advisers will sort your mortgage, protection, life insurance, pension, investments, ISAs, will and business protection; a minefield I avoid, you can’t be really good at everything so you’re better off being excellent at one thing, I specialise in business protection. I can easily wrap up the specific elements of tax-efficient share protection, executive income protection, life policies, relevant life policies, Key Person and group schemes in an umbrella-term that Kylie Minogue knows nothing about – ‘arse-covering’. Whether in a band or in business, you’ve got to cover your arse!

Secondly, it’s important. There is information every business owner in the UK should know, and the financial consequences of ignorance could be worse than Ian Paice having lost both his arms in 1968.

So, hold onto your drumsticks and sit with the baited breath you’d have after a seven hour intro including the likes of Pepsi and Shirley, Juan Direction (a latino cover band I just invented) and Les Dawson does Rachmaninov for a three hour Cliff Richard stint at Mile End stadium…. the weekly lowdown on everything you need to know about protecting your business, and your ears, is about to begin.

Rock on.