is the firm’s life insurance up to date? probably not.
by marc rosenberg
it’s a tough question, but one that must be asked: in the event of a partner’s death, does the firm wish to accelerate the buyout?
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there are two ways to do so: accelerate vesting or accelerate the payment schedule.
- accelerate vesting. partner agreements commonly require a person to have been a partner for a certain number of years to be fully vested in buyout payments. if a deceased partner does not have enough years as a partner for full vesting, should the firm consider accelerating the vesting in some manner?
example: assume that a partner has accumulated $1 million in goodwill-based benefits and $250,000 of capital at the time of his or her death if the partner has 10 years of vesting, and full vesting occurs at 20 years, the vested amount of the goodwill would be $500,000, paid over a prescribed number of years.
if the firm wishes to accelerate the deceased partner’s vesting and deems the vesting to be 100 percent (20 years’ vesting credit instead of 10), this accelerated vesting will result in a goodwill buyout of $1 million instead of $500,000, paid over a prescribed number of years.
- accelerate the payment schedule. most agreements provide for payment of retirement benefits over a period of years, often 10 years. the firm could consider accelerating the payout period. example: assume the same data as the previous example. further assume that the firm does not accelerate vesting. so the buyout to the deceased partner’s estate will be $500,000. if the normal payout period is 10 years, the goodwill buyout will be $50,000 per year.
if the firm decides to accelerate the 10-year payout period to, say, five years, the annual payment will be $100,000. quite a difference.
the cold reality of how expensive this generosity is stops most firms from acting on the impulse to adopt such provisions. as a result, most firms treat death the same as an ordinary retirement in terms of vesting and the payout period.
life insurance
most firms elect to carry life insurance on the partners to finance the retirement benefits payable. the amount is generally set at the amount of benefits that would be payable in the event of each partner’s death.
issues the firm needs to decide include these:
- should the insurance be whole life, universal or term?
- who should be the beneficiary, the firm or the partner’s estate?
- how much insurance should be purchased?
- what happens if the amount of insurance is higher or lower than the vested benefits? most firms do the following: if the insurance coverage exceeds the vested benefits, the firm retains the excess. if the benefits exceed the coverage, then the benefit number is paid.
one of the challenges with partners’ life insurance is increasing the coverage from time to time as the partners’ benefits increase, which they do most years. it’s one of the best examples of practice management to-dos that often fall through the cracks. it’s easy for the firm to forget to make these updates. over the years, i’ve worked with many firms whose life insurance coverage is significantly below the retirement benefits to the partners.
compensation of the deceased partner
another key issue is determining the remaining compensation due to partners in the year they pass away. this partner agreement language is common and an excellent way to address this:
when the death of a partner does not occur on the last day of the firm’s fiscal year, the firm will compute the deceased partner’s share of the firm’s full-year income that the estate is entitled to. this computation is necessary because cpa firms typically earn a disproportionate share of their annual income during the tax season.
the share of income that the deceased partner receives will be computed as follows:
- start with computing the firm’s full-year income. this will obviously have to wait until the year is completed.
- determine what would have been the deceased partner’s share of the full-year income, had he or she not passed away.
- multiply the deceased partner’s share of the firm’s income by a fraction whose numerator is the number of months that the partner was active and whose denominator is 12.
- the amount due the deceased partner will be reduced by any periodic draws and/or salary payments made to the partner.
alternatively, the firm can simply decide that whatever income the deceased partner received at the time of death is the final compensation amount that the firm owes him or her.
in the event of death, lump-sum distributions from life insurance will be used to pay down retirement benefits owed.
notice and client transition
virtually all firms waive the requirements for notice and client transition when a partner dies.