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Some insurance companies have health plans that are designed specifically for the sole proprietor or the self employed individual. At first glance, these plans look enticing to sole proprietors that are searching for affordable health insurance.

However, when taking a closer look, these plans are mediocre at best. They tend to be expensive, have limited health care benefits and one of the biggest draw backs to many of these sole proprietor plans is that they come with high deductibles. This is not what many self employed individuals have in mind when it comes to finding affordable health care coverage for themselves and their families.

So what's a small business owner supposed to do? Here's a tip that we've been using at our company for many years to help self employed business owners use to qualify for group health insurance rates.

Simply put your spouse or a family member on payroll. You can pay them minimum wage and for as little as 20 hours per week. What this strategy does for you is this; you now have 2 people working for your company. You can still file your schedule C as a sole proprietor like you always have and your spouse or family member will receive a paycheck every 2 weeks or so. Now because you have 2 people working at your company, presto, you can qualify for group health insurance! You will have unlimited possibilities of health insurance plans available to you.

Once you find the health insurance plan that fits your needs, all you need to do is apply and provide a W-4 form to the insurance company for your "new employee." Your spouse or family member simply "waives" his or her coverage. You now have group health insurance coverage that will save you plenty of money and provide you with the great benefits that you have been looking for.

Call us today if you would like see how this strategy can work for you.

Bill Behr is a partner at http://www.healthplansny.com a leading group benefits provider serving the New York Tri-State area. We specialize in showing small business owners unique and innovative ways to save money and improve their benefit plans.

When you begin your own business it is important that you include business insurance in your start up plan. It is important that you protect your assets with insurance and there are many types to consider. You need protection from all types of possible losses. This can range from auto insurances, key man insurance, liability, and asset protection insurance. You may need all of the aforementioned or maybe just one or two of them but here we will give you a brief overview of each type so you can decide whether you need to check further into them.

If you have any automobiles that are drive by for work related trips it is important that you are properly insured. If you are involved in an automotive related accident having your vehicle insured can really protect your other assets. This is especially true if you are carrying enough coverage. My personal feeling is that businesses that have any assets at all should have a policy with an absolute minimum coverage of 300,000/100,000. This means that your insurance company will pay out a total of $100,000 per person involved in the accident with the most per accident being $300,000. This type of coverage will hopefully allow you to settle with all involved and keep them from coming after your other assets.

Key Man insurance is usually held on the person that is the biggest asset to the company, hence the name "key man." This is a life insurance policy that if this person were to die you would receive money to help your company stay afloat while trying to find a replacement or liquidating the company. This money can cover everyday business expenses such as mortgage payments or help you keep your payroll running smoothly during this unfortunate transition period.

Liability insurance is just that, it protects you from any liable law suits. This means that if someone comes into your store and slips and falls this is the insurance that is going to; hopefully, protect you from a long drawn out law suit. This type of insurance also protects you if your business requires you to do work on job sites. For instance, if you are a tree trimmer and you are trimming branches and one of them falls on a parked vehicle this insurance is what is used to reimburse the vehicle's owner.

Asset protection insurance can have lots of different types of coverage. Most of the times it covers your buildings and contents in your buildings quite similar to homeowner's insurance. Then there are more specific policies for niche markets. For example if you own a restaurant you can insure your perishable items so in the event of a prolonged power outage you will be reimbursed for your lost inventory.

When you own a business it is very important that you consider ever loss that you could encounter and try to make sure that you have the correct business insurance to cover it. Without the proper types of business insurance you are leaving your business' assets unprotect against law suits.

Craig Thornburrow is an acknowledged expert in his field. You can get more free advice on business insurance and home business insurance at http://www.findbusinessinsurance.com