The Owner's Emergency Plan: If the Owner Suddenly Fails

An emergency plan governs who runs the company, signs and accesses accounts if the owner suddenly fails — through accident, illness or death. Most businesses do not have one: according to a DIHK survey, only about one in four companies keeps the most important documents ready for the emergency. The rest is paralysed for days or weeks — exactly when customers, banks and employees watch most closely.

What happens without an emergency plan?

The business stalls faster than most believe: without bank authority nobody accesses the accounts, without a deputy arrangement nobody signs offers and orders, and a GmbH without an acting managing director is blocked in legal transactions until a new one is appointed. Passwords, customer relationships and pricing often sit solely in the owner's head.

The result is not a hypothetical risk but a valuation issue: a business that depends on its owner loses substance within weeks in an emergency — and this dependency is exactly what every buyer examines. How to reduce it deliberately: Preparing Succession.

What belongs in the emergency kit?

A complete emergency kit answers three questions: Who may act (powers of attorney and deputies)? With what (access, accounts, documents)? And what needs to be done (priorities, contacts)? Everything else elaborates these three levels.

Area	Contents
Powers of attorney	Bank authorities, commercial power of attorney, health care proxy
Deputies	Who runs operations? Who decides what — named in writing
Documents	Articles of association, will (aligned!), insurance, contracts
Access	Passwords, IT admin, banking access — securely stored, findable
Communication	Who informs employees, key customers, the bank — in which order

One frequent mistake deserves its own mention: the will and the articles of association must match. If the articles govern share succession differently from the will, the articles usually prevail — a lawyer or notary should reconcile this, not chance.

How does the emergency plan relate to succession?

The emergency plan is the duty, planned succession the discipline — both answer the same question on different time axes: who runs the company without you? Packing the emergency kit completes half the succession preparation on the side: building deputies, documenting knowledge, ordering structures.

Conversely, an orderly succession makes the emergency plan less dramatic every year, because the company learns to run without its owner anyway. When the right time for that is: read here.

Where do you start this week?

With three steps that need no advisor: review and grant bank authorities, put a deputy arrangement in writing, collect access data and key documents in one place known to a trusted person. Then the legal part — powers of attorney, will, articles — cleanly drawn up with a lawyer or notary.

Who should know the emergency plan?

At least two people: one inside the company (deputy) and one outside (family, tax advisor or lawyer). An emergency kit nobody can find or open is none.

How often must the emergency plan be updated?

Once a year, with a fixed date — plus at every relevant event: new bank contract, shareholder change, new IT systems. Outdated powers of attorney are as useful in an emergency as none.

Is a general power of attorney enough?

It is a central building block, but replaces neither the operational deputy arrangement nor the reconciliation with articles and will. What is needed in the individual case is for your lawyer or notary — the emergency plan orders the questions, the advice answers them.

The best succession starts years before closing. Talk to IGCP Capital Partners early and in confidence — independent, discreet, at eye level. → igcp.at