Houston Commercial Insurance: What Mid-Market Businesses Pay, What They Need, and How to Choose a Broker (2026)
Reading Time: 8 minutesHouston Commercial Insurance: What Mid-Market Businesses Pay, What They Need, and How to Choose a Broker (2026) Commercial insurance for Houston businesses costs $15,000 to $250,000+ per year in total program premium, depending on industry, employee count, revenue, and how many coverage lines the operation requires. A 50-employee oilfield services company with $10M in revenue […]
How Much Does an MRI Cost Without Insurance in 2026?
Reading Time: 6 minutesHow Much Does an MRI Cost Without Insurance in 2026? An MRI costs $400 to $3,500 without insurance in 2026, with a national median around $1,325. But here’s the part almost nobody tells you: the exact same scan can cost five times more at a hospital than at an independent imaging center two miles down […]
Fiduciary Liability Insurance Cost: What Drives Plan Sponsor Premiums (2026)
Reading Time: 4 minutesFiduciary Liability Insurance Cost: What Drives Plan Sponsor Premiums Fiduciary liability insurance premiums are driven less by plan size than by how fees are structured and how the fiduciary process is documented. Following years of excessive-fee litigation, insurers now treat fee levels and review processes as the top pricing factors — which means the 2026 […]
ERISA Bond vs. Fiduciary Liability Insurance: What Plan Sponsors Need (2026)
Reading Time: 7 minutesERISA Bond vs. Fiduciary Liability Insurance: What Plan Sponsors Need Plan sponsors routinely confuse two coverages that protect entirely different things: the ERISA fidelity bond and fiduciary liability insurance. The bond is required by law but narrow, covering only fraud and theft of plan assets. Fiduciary liability insurance is optional but covers the exposure that […]
Building a Documented 401(k) Fiduciary Process Under the 2026 DOL Rule
Reading Time: 5 minutesBuilding a Documented 401(k) Fiduciary Process (2026 DOL Rule) Under the DOL’s March 2026 proposed rule, a 401(k) fiduciary’s legal protection now turns on a documented, repeatable evaluation process — not on whether an investment performed well. For plan sponsors, that makes a written fiduciary process the single most valuable risk-management asset they can build, […]
Adding Alternative Investments to a 401(k): Fiduciary Duties Under the 2026 Rule
Reading Time: 5 minutesAdding Alternative Investments to a 401(k): Under the 2026 Rule Fiduciary Duties The 2026 DOL rule and Executive Order 14330 opened the door for private equity, private credit, and other alternative assets in 401(k) menus — and with that access comes new fiduciary exposure. For plan sponsors weighing alternatives, the safe harbor offers protection only […]
Key Person Insurance and Buy-Sell Agreements: Funding Ownership Transfers (2026)
Reading Time: 8 minutesKey Person Insurance and Buy-Sell Agreements: Funding Ownership Transfers For an established business with multiple owners, a buy-sell agreement is only as strong as the money standing behind it, and life insurance is the most common way to guarantee that cash is there the moment an owner dies or exits. Key person and buy-sell coverage […]
How Much Key Person Insurance Does a Business Need? (2026)
Reading Time: 8 minutesHow Much Key Person Insurance Does a Business Need? Coverage Calculation Methods for 2026 Most businesses buy 5–10× the key person’s annual compensation in coverage. For a CFO earning $250,000 in total compensation, that translates to $1.25 million to $2.5 million. But the salary multiplier is a shortcut, not a strategy. It works fine for […]
Business Succession Funding With Life Insurance: A 2026 Guide
Reading Time: 7 minutesBusiness Succession Funding With Life Insurance A business succession plan tells you who takes over; the funding strategy makes sure the transition can actually happen. For an established company, life insurance is the mechanism that turns a written succession plan into a funded one, delivering liquidity at the exact moment ownership changes hands. The gap […]
Key Person Insurance Tax Treatment and EOLI Rules (2026)
Reading Time: 9 minutesKey Person Insurance Tax Treatment and EOLI Rules (2026) Key person insurance premiums are not tax-deductible. Death benefits are generally tax-free. Those two sentences capture the core tax treatment — but the compliance step between purchasing the policy and collecting the benefit is where most businesses make the mistake that turns a tax-free payout into […]