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Small Business Protection Plan
Quite often, professional legal issues are precipitated by other business, personal or financially related issues. The Small Business Protection Plan combines the benefits of the Small Business Legal Plan with the Family Protection Plan.
Membership in this plan provides access to Free and Discounted Legal Care, Identity Theft Restoration Services, Tax Preparation and Advice, Financial Education and Credit Counseling and CriticalEvents™ Telephonic Counseling.
Small Business Legal Plan
Free Attorney Provides Services:*
- Unlimited initial phone consultations during business hours for new legal matters.
- Attorney will review as many as 5 independent documents each quarter. These include business documents, contracts, signed or unsigned, up to 10 pages each.
- Initial telephone calls made on behalf of your business if deemed appropriate by your plan attorney (two per month). Follow up calls are made at the guaranteed low hourly rate.
- Initial letters written on behalf of your business if deemed appropriate by your plan attorney. Three per month for new subjects; follow up letters are written at the guaranteed low hourly rate.
- Initial collection letters are limited to 10 per quarter. More than 10, and any follow up letters are written at the guaranteed low hourly rate or at the contingency fee percentage, depending upon what you and your plan attorney decide.
- One on one consultations for each new legal matter. Thirty minute time limit per subject matter. Time over the 30 minutes per subject will be at the guaranteed low hourly rate.
- Registered Agent for your business in the state in which you are incorporated as well as other states where you do business.
*
In many states Attorney liability may require
Plan Attorneys to obtain a retainer from the
member prior to providing some of the free member
benefits. (see definition above).
Additional Member Benefits:
Guaranteed Low Hourly Rates**- Plan attorneys have contracted to charge no more than $125.00 per hour, or 40% off their usual and customary hourly rate, whichever is greater, for legal care that goes beyond the free services described above. In most cases, the attorneys will be able to estimate the amount of hours any given case may consume prior to beginning work on the case.
Retainers** - In the case of extended legal care, plan attorneys may ask you for a retainer. Any retainer sought will be computed by multiplying the number of hours a plan attorney believes a case will take, by the appropriate discounted hourly plan rate. For instance; 10 hours x $125.00 = a retainer of $1,250.00. Any unused portion of the retainer will be returned to the member.
Contingency Fee Discounts** - Attorneys often work on a contingency fee basis on such cases as personal injury and collections. This fee is usually expressed as a percentage of the amount collected or awarded. In collection matters, your attorney will accept 18% if the case is settled before formal court proceedings begin. After proceedings begin, the fee is 27%. On all other contingency matters there is a 10% discount on the lower of either the state maximum or the attorney’s standard rate.
** Court costs and filing fees additional. Program is not insurance coverage.
Identity Theft Solutions
Identity theft is the fastest growing financial crime in America, striking millions of victims each year. In a matter of seconds, personal information such as a social security number, a credit card number or an address can be stolen and used to obtain a new mortgage, line of credit, additional credit cards or other crimes.
Victims may never know that their identities have been stolen until unauthorized transactions appear on credit card statements, collection notices appear in the mail or loan applications are declined. In a short period of time, extensive damage can be done as a result of a stolen identity event.
Restoring one’s name and good credit is a time consuming and expensive process. On average, it takes six months to detect identity theft and approximately 200 hours to recover from the crime. Victims must endure a number of costly steps to dispute fraudulent debts and accounts opened by an identity thief.
Product Features and Benefits:
If a member becomes a victim of identity theft, the plan administrator assigns a Privacy Advocate to manage the case. The Advocate mobilizes our Recovery Team to assist with the recovery process from beginning to end. The team includes fraud investigators, legal counsel, paralegals and other identity theft experts.
Identity Theft Restoration
Upon notification of an identity theft incident, Privacy Advocates will act on behalf of our members as a dedicated case manager to:
- Investigate and confirm the fraudulent activity, including known, unknown and potentially complicated additional sources of identity theft.
- Complete and mail customized, pre-populated, state specific “Fraud Packet” via certified mail with pre-paid return instructions.
- Place phone calls, send electronic notifications, and prepare appropriate documentation on the member’s behalf, including dispute letters for defensible complaints to any and all appropriate state agencies and financial institutions.
- Issue fraud alerts and victim statements when necessary, with the three consumer credit reporting agencies, the FTC, SSA, and U.S. Postal Service.
- Submit Special Limited Power of Attorney and ID Theft Affidavit to involved creditors for card cancellation and new card issuance.
- Contact, follow up and escalate issues with affected agencies, creditors, financial institutions, to reinforce member’s rights.
- Assist the member in notifying local law enforcement authorities to file the appropriate official reports.
- Utilize real time access to public records reports including DMV, criminal, address changes, liens, and judgments for further investigation where applicable.
- Provide peace of mind and resolution of key issues from start to finish as swiftly as possible.
- Provide members with a “Case Completion Kit” including copies of documentation, correspondence, forms and letters for their personal records.
Identity Theft Insurance*
Each member will also receive up to $25,000 worth of insurance coverage. This coverage will help members offset some of the costs of restoring their identity to its original status, including:
- Lost wages: $500.00 per week, for 4 weeks maximum
- Re-filing of loans
- Defense cost for certain civil law suits: Reasonable and necessary fees and expenses incurred in the United States by the insured with insurer’s consent for an attorney appointed by them for:
- Defending any civil suit brought against the insured by a creditor, collection agency or other entity acting on behalf of a creditor for non- payment of goods or services or default on a loan solely as a result of a stolen identity event.
- Removing any civil judgment wrongfully entered against the insured solely as a result of a stolen identity event.
- Reimbursement of fees: Reasonable and necessary costs incurred in the United States by the insured for:
- Re-filing applications for loans, grants or other credit instruments that are rejected solely as a result of a stolen identity event.
- Notarizing affidavits or other similar documents, long distance telephone calls and postage solely as a result of the insured’s efforts to report a stolen identity event and/or amend or rectify records as to the insured’s true name or identity as a result of a stolen identity event.
- Up to six credit reports from established credit bureaus (with no more than two reports from any one credit bureau) dated within 12 months after the insured’s discovery of a stolen identity event.
Lost or Stolen Credit Card Assistance / Document Recovery Services
In the event their credit cards are misplaced or stolen Privacy Advocates will provide members with assistance including:
- Consult with member to determine the severity of the event
- Obtain credit reports from each of the three major credit
- Contact each credit card company or other financial institution with the member via teleconference
- Cancel members affected credit cards
- Request new replacement cards
- Place fraud alerts with all three major credit bureaus
- Assist members with interpreting their credit reports
- Provide daily ID monitoring for six months to help proactively prevent any additional identity fraud
- Provide credit dispute assistance
- Assist with additional lost items including driver’s license, library, and other membership cards
All of our Call Center Personnel (ID Recovery Specialists) are certified paralegals with extensive legal and fraud experience. Call Center Personnel are trained in crisis intervention and provided with continuing fraud education. Further, our paralegals work under the direction of our corporate attorney.
Unlimited Legal Care at Discounted Rates
With this program, identity theft victims can defend themselves against crimes committed by an identity thief. In addition to the $25,000 worth of coverage provided by our identity theft insurance, our program provides members with access to a proprietary attorney network that will represent members at the low hourly rate of $125.00 for all extended legal care.
Members may use our program to prosecute identity thieves. This is the only identity theft program in the country that provides unlimited discounted legal care, enabling members to both defend themselves against a theft, and prosecute thieves.
With a nationwide network of plan attorneys, Legal Club is the sole identity theft vendor that can offer this important plan enhancement to its members.
Tax Preparation and Advice
Tax Preparation and Advice includes comprehensive business and personal tax benefits for small businesses including Free tax return preparation and unlimited, toll-free, tax related advice during normal business hours. Additionally, small businesses will have access to most commonly used tax related services free of charge or at a significantly discounted rate.
Small Business Tax Related Benefits:
- Unlimited advice for personal and business matters on federal taxation via toll-free phone call/fax/e-mail (no time or frequency limitations).
- Free tax return preparation (includes 1040EZ, 1040A, and 1040)*
- Deep discounts on numerous tax schedules
- IRS audit assistance
- Tax professionals will review any notice or letter issued by the IRS and provide advice on how to understand and solve the matter.
- Members also have access to a web-based IRS audit tutorial, as well as an IRS notification tutorial.
- IRS notification assistance
- Tax planning
- Review of prior year's tax return
- Member portal with:
- tax tips
- tax law changes
- tax organization area
- IRS audit area
- IRS notification area
- Online advice
All tax and financial assistance is provided by tax attorneys, financial analysts, CPA's, former auditors and/or Enrolled Agents certified by the IRS. Additionally, all tax and financial advice is backed by a $1 million liability policy.
Professionals will also review the prior year's tax return.
* Limit one per member
Financial Education and Credit Counseling
This program provides personalized financial education and counseling (24/7/365) through a variety of delivery methods including telephone, live chat sessions, and web based courses and tools.
Free Consultations
- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Credit & Debt Counseling by Certified Credit Counselors
- Assist in creating a livable budget to balance income and expenses
- Provide specific advice on how to deal with creditors
- Offer money management and budgeting techniques to help gain control of finances
- Develop a comprehensive spending plan and action plan to become debt free
Housing Advisory Services
- Advice covering first time home ownership, affordable mortgages and refinancing
- Post purchase counseling
- Reverse mortgages - what are they and how do they work
Online Tools & Articles
- Access online articles designed to inform, assist, educate and alert consumers in all areas of credit, money management and how to get help
- Hotlinks to a wide variety of consumer resources on topics such as lending, credit reports, credit cards and vehicle purchasing and financing
- Online calculators to help with budgeting, vehicle and home financing
Money Choices
- Five private self-paced courses, presented by Visa, that teach the skills needed for smart money management.
CriticalEvents™
CriticalEvents™ Counseling
Critical events, such as robberies and workplace deaths, cost U.S. employers over $1.2 billion per year in reduced productivity and lost work time. In the event that your workplace encounters an incident such as this, your affected employees can call and speak with a Critical Events Counselor at any time, day or night. All Counselors are licensed and trained to help you restore productivity as soon as possible.
We offer the following comprehensive services, which have proven to be effective in managing issues with various levels of care:
- 24-hour member advocate line
- Crisis and urgent needs management
- Goal and success planning consultation
- Resource materials
- Follow-up
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