You Built the Business.
Now Build a Strategy
That Protects It.
Most business owners have a financial plan for the company. Very few have one for themselves. Pinnacle Financial Group serves Florida business owners who are ready to close that gap — across every dimension of business and personal financial risk.
A Financial Planning Firm That Understands What It Means to Run a Business in South Florida.
Business owners in Broward County operate in one of the most competitive regional economies in the Southeast. You are managing cash flow, retaining key employees, navigating state and federal tax obligations, and building an enterprise that may represent the largest single asset on your personal balance sheet. Standard financial planning was not built for that.
Pinnacle Financial Group has spent 27 years working alongside business owners, entrepreneurs, and executives in Weston and across South Florida. We understand the planning complexity that comes with business ownership: the overlap between personal and business finances, the vulnerability created when a key person is uninsured, the legal and financial exposure of an unfunded partnership agreement, the cost of offering a benefits package that cannot compete, and the missed opportunity of leaving executive compensation strategies on the table.
We bring an integrated planning framework designed specifically for business owners. Not a product pitch. A coordinated strategy built around the full scope of your obligations, your risks, and your goals — from the day you open your doors to the day you exit.
- An unfunded Buy-Sell Agreement that cannot be legally executed without liquidity
- Missing or undersized Key Person Insurance leaving the business exposed
- No Business Overhead Expense coverage for an owner disability event
- Executive compensation strategies left entirely untapped
- A benefits package that has never been competitively benchmarked
- A succession plan that exists only as a conversation, not a structure
We Serve Florida Business Owners at Every Stage of the Business Lifecycle.
Our business owner client base spans industries, revenue levels, and ownership structures. What they share is a common need: a financial advisor who understands business, not just personal finance.
Sole Proprietors & Self-Employed Professionals
When your income depends entirely on your personal ability to work, the financial risk of disability, illness, or death is existential. We build protection and retirement accumulation strategies for business owners without access to employer-sponsored plans, ensuring your income is protected and your retirement is funded on your terms.
Partnership & Multi-Owner Businesses
A partnership without a funded Buy-Sell Agreement is a liability. If one partner dies, becomes disabled, or wants to exit, the financial consequences can destroy the business and the surviving partners with it. We design and fund Buy-Sell Agreements that protect ownership continuity and ensure every partner has a defined exit with guaranteed liquidity.
S-Corps, LLCs & Closely Held Corporations
Closely held business owners carry unique planning complexity: significant equity in the business, minimal diversification outside it, and a compensation structure that creates challenges for retirement savings and tax planning. We address executive compensation design, qualified and non-qualified retirement strategies, and business continuity planning in a single coordinated framework.
Business Owners Transitioning to Exit or Retirement
The sale or succession of a business is one of the most consequential financial events of your life. Without a coordinated plan, you may exit with far less than your business is worth after taxes, legal fees, and poor transition structure. We work with business owners in the pre-exit phase to position assets, coordinate with legal counsel, and build a post-exit retirement income strategy.
A Complete Business Financial Planning Framework.
Protection. Compensation. Benefits. Exit.
Every service below is designed to work as part of a coordinated strategy. Not as a standalone product. Pinnacle evaluates your situation across all dimensions before making a single recommendation.
Business Protection
The foundation of every business financial plan. Structured to address key person risk, ownership continuity, owner disability, and estate liquidity simultaneously.
Key Person Insurance
Every business has people whose departure would create an immediate financial crisis. The loss of a key owner, top producer, or critical executive through death or disability can result in lost revenue, client attrition, lender defaults, and the collapse of buyer confidence if you are in the middle of a sale.
Key Person Insurance provides a tax-free cash infusion to the business that buys time, funds a replacement search, services debt obligations, and protects enterprise value at the moment of maximum vulnerability. We evaluate your key person exposure across all ownership and management roles, model the financial impact of each scenario, and design coverage properly sized to the actual risk. Most businesses are dramatically underinsured at this level.
Buy-Sell Agreement Design & Funding
A Buy-Sell Agreement defines what happens to business ownership when a partner dies, becomes permanently disabled, divorces, or wants to exit. Without funding, it is a legal document that cannot be executed. With the right life and disability insurance funding structure, it becomes a binding commitment that protects every owner and ensures business continuity regardless of the triggering event.
Pinnacle designs and funds Buy-Sell Agreements across all three primary structures:
- Entity Purchase (Stock Redemption) The business owns and pays premiums on all policies. When a triggering event occurs, the company receives the death benefit and purchases the departing owner's shares. Administratively simpler for businesses with multiple owners.
- Cross-Purchase Agreement Each owner owns and pays premiums on policies covering every other owner. Surviving owners receive the death benefit personally and purchase shares directly, receiving a step-up in cost basis that reduces future capital gains exposure.
- Trusteed Cross-Purchase A trustee holds all policies and facilitates the transaction. Combines the cost basis advantage of cross-purchase with the administrative simplicity of entity purchase. Ideal for businesses with four or more owners.
We also fund the disability trigger — the most commonly overlooked component. A Disability Buy-Out policy provides the capital to execute the purchase when a partner becomes permanently disabled. Pinnacle coordinates directly with your business attorney to ensure the legal agreement and the insurance funding are precisely aligned.
Business Overhead Expense & Owner Disability Insurance
Individual disability insurance replaces your personal income. But if you are the business, your disability also means the business stops generating revenue while fixed overhead continues. Business Overhead Expense (BOE) Insurance covers rent, payroll, utilities, and other fixed operating costs while you are unable to work, keeping the business alive long enough for you to recover or execute a planned transition.
We coordinate BOE coverage with your individual disability policy and your Buy-Sell disability trigger to ensure every dimension of the disability risk is addressed in a unified structure.
Business Life Insurance & Estate Liquidity
Life insurance at the business owner level serves multiple strategic functions simultaneously: funding the Buy-Sell Agreement, protecting against the loss of a key person, providing estate liquidity to transfer a business interest without forced sale, and building tax-advantaged cash value that supplements retirement income. A properly structured permanent life policy is both a protection tool and a financial asset. We design business life insurance strategies that address all applicable uses for a given owner's situation.
Executive Compensation Planning
The 401(k) has a ceiling. Your key executives know it. For an executive earning $400,000, IRS limits represent less than 6% of income going into a tax-advantaged retirement account. These four strategies close that gap.
Section 162 Executive Bonus Plan
The business pays the premium on a permanent life insurance policy for a selected key employee as a deductible compensation expense. A Restrictive Endorsement Agreement limits cash value access until a defined vesting period expires — creating a financial golden handcuff a salary offer alone cannot replicate. No IRS approval or discrimination testing required.
Non-Qualified Deferred Compensation (NQDC)
A selected executive defers a portion of current compensation to a future date when they are likely in a lower tax bracket. No IRS contribution limits, no participation requirements, no discrimination testing. The primary tool for owners who have maximized qualified plan contributions and need additional pre-tax accumulation capacity.
Split-Dollar Life Insurance
The business and a key executive share the cost and benefits of a permanent life insurance policy. The employer recovers their premium outlay from the policy's cash value or death benefit. Delivers significant life insurance protection to a key executive at minimal out-of-pocket cost — an effective tool for attracting senior talent in competitive markets.
Corporate-Owned Life Insurance (COLI)
When a business establishes a NQDC plan or any formal executive benefit obligation, it creates a balance sheet liability. COLI allows the business to informally fund that liability using a permanent life insurance policy on the covered executive. The policy's cash value grows tax-deferred, the death benefit can offset the cost of the executive benefit obligation, and the overall cost of the executive compensation strategy is significantly reduced over time.
Employee Benefits Analysis
Your benefits package is either a recruiting tool or a liability. In a tight labor market, most small and mid-sized businesses in Florida are operating with benefits packages assembled reactively over time rather than designed strategically.
Group Health Insurance
Group health is the anchor of your benefits package and typically the highest single line item in your benefits budget. We compare plans from multiple carriers, evaluate network quality relative to your employee population, and model cost-sharing structures that balance employee access with employer cost control.
Supplemental Group Benefits: Life, Dental & Vision
Group life, dental, and vision are the baseline supplemental benefits employees expect. We evaluate coverage levels, carrier options, and cost-sharing structures for all three, coordinating them with your core health offering into a coherent package.
Voluntary Benefits: The Retention Advantage Your Competitors Are Not Offering
Voluntary benefits cost the employer little or nothing while delivering significant perceived value to employees. They fill the gaps left by group health and provide financial protection employees would otherwise purchase individually at far higher cost.
How the Employee Benefits Analysis Works
Pinnacle does not present a pre-packaged quote. We conduct a structured analysis before making any recommendation.
Current Benefits Audit
Review existing plans, carrier contracts, contribution structures, renewal history, and employee participation rates.
Workforce & Demographics Analysis
Profile your employee population by age, family status, income level, and location to identify highest-value benefit categories.
Competitive Benchmarking
Compare your current offering against industry norms and regional competitors in your labor market.
Multi-Carrier Plan Design
Go to market across multiple carriers for each benefit category across a range of cost and coverage structures.
Employer Cost Modeling
Model the total employer cost of each proposed structure so you make decisions with full visibility into the financial impact.
Implementation & Enrollment
Manage carrier onboarding, employee education, open enrollment, and ongoing plan administration as your single point of contact.
Business Succession & Exit Planning
Planning your exit before you are ready to exit is the only way to do it right. Business succession planning is not an event. It is a process that begins years before the actual transition.
Whether you intend to pass the business to family, sell to a third party, or execute an internal management buyout, the financial, legal, and tax structures that maximize your outcome must be in place before the transition is imminent. Pinnacle works with business owners in the pre-succession phase to design ownership transfer structures, fund transition obligations, and coordinate with your attorney and CPA to ensure every dimension of the exit is optimized before you are under the pressure of an active transaction.
What Makes Pinnacle Different From a Standard Financial Advisor for Business Owners.
The difference is not the product list. It is the depth of analysis, the coordination across disciplines, and the refusal to make a single recommendation before the full picture is understood.
| Planning Area | Standard Advisor Approach | Pinnacle Approach |
|---|---|---|
| Key Person Coverage | Single policy quote from one carrier | Full key person risk analysis across all critical roles; multi-carrier design |
| Buy-Sell Funding | Policy sold without legal coordination | Insurance funding aligned with legal structure, payment terms, and disability triggers |
| Executive Compensation | Generic 401(k) recommendation | Section 162, NQDC, and split-dollar strategies designed around owner tax position and goals |
| Employee Benefits | Single-carrier quote at renewal | Full Benefits Analysis: competitive benchmarking, multi-carrier, full voluntary benefit stack |
| Voluntary Benefits | Not offered or referred out | Accident, Critical Illness, Cancer, Hospital Indemnity, Short-Term Disability — enrolled in-house |
| Owner Disability | Individual DI policy only | Coordinated individual DI + BOE + Buy-Sell disability trigger as one unified structure |
| Succession Planning | One conversation, no coordination with legal or CPA | Multi-year pre-exit planning coordinated across legal, tax, and financial strategies |
| Ongoing Relationship | Annual review call if you initiate it | Proactive review cycle tied to business milestones, valuation changes, and life events |
What Florida Business Owners Say About Working With Pinnacle Financial Group.
"Running a business means thinking about risks that most people never consider. The Pinnacle Financial Group team helped us identify vulnerabilities within our organization and implemented strategies such as Key Person Insurance and a Buy-Sell funding structure for our partners. Their approach was thoughtful, educational, and very strategic. Instead of selling products, they helped us build a financial protection framework for the long-term stability of the business."
"When we expanded our medical practice, we realized our employee benefits were outdated and not competitive. Pinnacle Financial Group conducted a full benefits review and helped us redesign our group benefits package including health, disability, and voluntary supplemental plans for our staff. The new structure not only improved employee satisfaction but also helped us attract better talent."
"Ricky introduced me to executive compensation concepts and tax-advantaged planning strategies that complement my 401(k) and traditional retirement savings. Through Pinnacle Financial Group, we structured a strategy that helps me accumulate assets more efficiently while also providing protection for my family. Ricky speaks the language of business owners and truly understands the financial challenges we face."
"As someone who spent decades building a successful business, my primary concern in retirement was not just preserving wealth, but creating a predictable income strategy that could last throughout our lifetime. They walked us through multiple scenarios, including inflation and longevity risks, so we could clearly see how our plan would perform over time."
Julio (Ricky) Gonzalez, RMIP™, CMIP®
Ricky Gonzalez is the Founder and CEO of Pinnacle Financial Group, Inc., headquartered in Weston, Florida. With more than 27 years of experience across financial advising, money management, and insurance planning, Ricky has built a practice that specifically serves the planning complexity of business owners, executives, and entrepreneurs.
His career began at AXA Advisors in 2001. Over the following decades, he built deep expertise across every dimension of business financial planning: Key Person Insurance, Buy-Sell Agreement design and funding, Section 162 Executive Bonus Plans, Non-Qualified Deferred Compensation arrangements, split-dollar structures, employee benefits analysis, Business Overhead Expense coverage, owner disability planning, and pre-exit succession strategy.
He is fully independent, multi-carrier, and carries no obligation to any single insurance company's product line. His clients are business owners who expect a planning relationship, not a sales call.
How Pinnacle Works With Florida Business Owners.
Every Pinnacle business owner engagement follows a structured process designed to ensure the strategy is built on a complete understanding of your situation before any recommendation is made.
Private Business Consultation
A confidential, no-obligation conversation to understand your full business and personal financial picture: ownership structure, key people, existing coverage, compensation design, employee headcount, benefits currently offered, and your goals for the business and for yourself.
Comprehensive Business & Personal Review
We conduct a detailed audit of your current business protection coverage, executive compensation structure, employee benefits program, ownership agreements, disability exposure, and succession status. We identify gaps, redundancies, and planning opportunities specific to your situation.
Integrated Business Planning Strategy
We deliver a written, coordinated business planning strategy that addresses protection, compensation, benefits, and succession in a single integrated framework. No disconnected products. A strategy that works as a whole.
Implementation & Ongoing Relationship
We implement the strategy and remain your advisor through every business milestone that follows. Growth events, ownership changes, new key hires, benefits renewals, valuation changes, and succession timeline shifts all trigger plan reviews. We are not a transaction. We are a long-term planning relationship.
Frequently Asked Questions from Florida Business Owners.
Serving Florida Business Owners Across Broward County and South Florida.
Pinnacle Financial Group is headquartered in Weston, Florida and serves business owners, entrepreneurs, and executives throughout the region.
We are also licensed to serve clients in multiple states beyond Florida. Contact us to confirm availability in your state.
Your Business Deserves a Financial Strategy as Sophisticated as the Work You Put Into Building It.
Pinnacle Financial Group offers a complimentary, private Business Financial Planning Consultation for Florida business owners. We will review your current exposure across key person risk, ownership continuity, executive compensation, employee benefits, and retirement readiness — and deliver an honest assessment of where your plan is strong and where it is not.
