Unfortunately, if you're like most business owners, in addition to feeling squeezed for time, you probably feel squeezed for money. What's more, you're probably convinced that there's not a lot you can do to address the above questions until you have the funds with which to address them.

The reality is - that's not true. You can get started. And the solution to whichever of those questions is highest on your priority list may be a financial product you have not only overlooked, but possibly even avoided - life insurance. How can life insurance help? There are all sorts of ways.

For starters, life insurance provides both lifetime and death benefits you can use to protect yourself, your key people, and your family, while simultaneously accomplishing important business objectives such as rewarding and retaining key employees, reducing income taxes, accumulating funds for retirement, and assuring an orderly succession of your business at death, disability, or retirement.

In many cases, you can use business dollars, often on a tax-deductible basis, to pay for the policies. And you can generally choose from a wide range of plans that allow you accommodate such variables as uneven (or seasonal) cash flow. And that's just for starters.

Following are just a few of the strategies that are available to you - right now, using life insurance - to meet your financial goals in a tax efficient and affordable manner.

Qualified Retirement Plans - If your business offers a qualified retirement plan (for example a 401(k), profit sharing, or pension plan), your contributions / accumulations can be used to buy life insurance on the participants. Premiums would be income tax-deductible to your business, and participants would be taxed each year on a relatively small "economic benefit" provided by the death benefit. The immediate benefits to you include a tax deduction for your business; the ability to provide an extra benefit to yourself and your employees; and protection for loved ones in the event of premature death.

Executive Bonus Plans - Under these plans, you and/or your key employees can purchase life insurance and your business can pay all or a portion of the premiums. The immediate benefits to you include a tax deduction for your business; the ability to provide an extra benefit to key employees; and the potential for supplemental retirement income (via cash values) down the road. You could also restrict your employee's access to cash values for a stated period of time, thus creating "golden handcuffs" that make it more attractive for them to remain with your company. While participants will owe income taxes on the amount of premiums paid by the business, you could elect to pay those taxes yourself via a bonus in the amount of taxes due.

Split Dollar Plans - Split Dollar Plans allow you to share the cost and benefits of a life insurance policy with key employees to whom you want to extend an extra benefit. Depending upon how the plan is structured, your employees may have access to the policy's cash value, either immediately or at a designated future time; they may be able to name the policy beneficiary; the death benefit could be used to purchase the business interest of a deceased partner or co-owner; and the business may be able to recover all of the plan costs at the death of a covered employee.

If your business owns the policy and pays the premiums, the IRS taxes the plan under an "economic benefit regime." Premiums are not tax deductible; the "economic benefit" of the death proceeds is taxable to the employee; but the employee names the beneficiary for the death proceeds in excess of the cash value.

If your business pays the premiums, but your employees own their policies, the IRS taxes your plan in the "loan regime" category, and premium payments are essentially treated as a series of loans to your employees.

Again, premiums are not tax deductible, but neither are they taxable as income to the employee. Under these plans, employees generally have access to policy cash values via income-tax free loans. (Note: policy loans will reduce the amount of the death benefit)