In order to attract and retain good calibre staff it is important for businesses to have a good employee benefits structure in place covering the areas of retirement benefits, death-in-service benefits, disability benefits and medical insurance. A well designed plan should allow employees to achieve a realistic level of benefit on retirement through contributions from the company and themselves and should cater adequately for the needs of employees and their dependants in the event of illness, disability or death. Businesses need to regularly review their employee benefit arrangements to make sure that they are meeting expectations. Mercantile offers specialist advice on setting up and administering group and individual plans to suit the specific requirements of each company.
Mercantile specialise in setting up and administering Small Self Administered Schemes and provide a Pensioneer Trustee service. Small Self Administered Schemes are pension schemes set up to provide retirement benefits for the Owners or Directors of businesses who wish to have direct involvement in and control over the investment of their pension funds. Such schemes allow investment in assets other than insured contracts and because of this are subject to a higher standard of supervision by the Revenue Commissioners. The trustees of these schemes must include a Pensioneer Trustee, a professional trustee or body widely involved in occupational schemes and their approval.
If a key person or shareholder in a business were to die, the business may be faced with some very difficult decisions which is why Business Protection Insurance should be considered. Thought should also be given to the passing of shares in the event of a shareholders death. Business Protection policies such as Life and Critical Illness should be arranged on key persons or shareholders, to ensure that there are sufficient funds available to cover likely eventualities such as temporary decline in earnings, repayment of business loans, purchase of shares from the deceased persons family, and the business disruption and recruitment costs associated with the loss of technical knowledge, know how and personal contacts.
