Last week, I had to travel down to Surrey to meet some new suppliers, and the journey was terrible. A cold and rainy March day, the motorway was extremely busy and there were a lot of lorries on the road. Sometimes I just couldn't see due to the spray and driving rain. As the M25 approached the traffic on the M1 slowed down and then stopped. Good old Radio 2 informed me that there was a major accident ahead and there would be long delays. Sure enough, my journey took at least an hour extra.

"The accident had been pushed onto the hard shoulder by the time I approached. Two cars and a lorry had a bad smash and I doubt either of the car drivers survived. If I had left 10 minutes earlier, that could have been me in that crash. It was a sobering thought. At least I have life insurance and a will, so I know that my family would be able to financially cope without me.

"Then I thought about my other major responsibility, my business. We are covered in every way – we've got public liability and professional indemnity insurance, the stock and vehicles are all covered, we've got an overdraft to help us out when needed. We've even got legal protection insurance. But what would happen to the business without my contribution?

"I take care of many aspects of the business, it's a small company so we all do more than one job. I make all the relationships with suppliers and clients and keep them happy, I also take care of everything on the financial side. I know that business like the back of my hand. Without me and my knowledge, I think the others would find it very difficult. If Sally, our best saleswoman, had an accident, we would find it very difficult without her. Similarly, if my co-director died or was too ill to work anymore, how would we manage without him?

"It wouldn't take long for the Bank to call and ask what would be happening with his 50% share of the company. I'd be left in a position where I'd have to buy the shares if I wanted to keep the company as my own. I'd also need to bring in another employee at director level to keep the business going, and build it up again. At that level it would be very costly and very time consuming, getting the right person to fit in to a small business can be difficult.

"I started to get really worried – what provisions had we made to ensure that the business would survive if we lost one of your key members of staff?"

Many directors of small business will probably have thought about these issues. However, of all the businesses with fewer than 10 employees in the UK, which amounts to 95.2%, only a handful have Keyman insurance. When you look at the odds of a person falling critically ill before retirement age, the figures are unsettling. 1 in 5 men and 1 in 6 women will suffer a critical illness before their usual retirement age, that's not including the chances of having an accident. That means that there's a good possibility that, at some point, one of your key people will become one of those statistics.

Keyman insurance does not sell very well and it's surprising because it offers such good protection which really is tailored to the needs of the small business. Insurance companies can't understand it either! With 4.1 million small businesses in the UK, it should have a big following, but it doesn't. Here's a breakdown of some of the key benefits:

• If a key person is unable to attend work, it provides income to the business to make up for the lost contribution from the key person.
• If a key person dies, the insurance pays a lump sum to the business which can be used for any purpose.
• If a key person who is also a shareholder is incapacitated or dies, the business will be provided with the capital required to buy the shares from them or their estate.

A Financial Adviser will be able to give you the complete picture on what Keyman insurance can do to protect your business. We say it's an essential for small businesses, ignore it at your peril!