When one of your key people is taken out of your business unexpectedly, the financial impacts are large and may affect your business in the long term. They may even jeopardise its future viability.

There's more than just a drop in productivity when one of your key people becomes ill or passes away unexpectedly. Consider some of these impacts on your business:

• loss of profits typically generated by your key person
• costs associated with the downtime before finding a replacement
• customers and suppliers losing confidence in your business
• expenses related to recruitment / hiring process
• competitors taking advantage of your weakened position

There are a variety of ways to mitigate these impacts. Key Person Insurance pays a regular benefit to soften the financial blow for an agreed period of time. Total and Permanent Disablement Insurance and Life Insurance can provide lump sums enabling you and your business partners to take more decisive steps and make changes to your business.

You might instinctively know who your key people are and what they are worth but it pays to get some good advice. Your SHARE adviser is trained to uncover the hidden costs of losing key personnel and can help you put some protection in place to keep your business on track if something unexpected happens.