About Des Richards
Why I do this work
Des Richards is the Founder and Strategic Protection Adviser at Alliance Advisory Services, helping UK company directors and business owners understand Business Protection risks before serious events affect continuity, ownership or income.
Before Alliance Advisory Services, I served in the Royal Air Force. Risk, in that environment, is never something you respond to after the fact. It’s assessed before you act. You plan for what could go wrong, you understand the consequences in advance, and you make decisions with a clear head — not in the middle of the event itself. That approach has stayed with me ever since.
What changed my perspective further
Some years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I also watched my wife face the same disease, and I lost her to it. I don’t set out these facts for sympathy. I set them out because they taught me something directly, in a way that no amount of professional training could have: you cannot always stop a serious illness, an accident, or a Relevant Life Cover. What you can control is whether the financial consequences have already been thought through.
What I learned applies just as much to business
When I moved into financial services and began advising company directors and business owners, I recognised the same pattern I’d seen everywhere else. Businesses run on the assumption that their key people will always be there — the founder, the technical director, the shareholder who put in the capital. Almost nobody has worked out, in specific financial terms, what would happen if one of them wasn’t.
That gap is what Alliance Advisory Services exists to close.
My approach with clients
I don’t lead with products, and I don’t believe in creating alarm to make a sale. I ask directors direct questions about how their business is structured, who it depends on, and what would happen — operationally and financially — if that changed tomorrow. Most of the time, those questions haven’t been asked before. Once they have been, the right course of action tends to be obvious.
The principle behind everything I advise on
You cannot always stop life from changing. You can prepare for the financial consequences. That’s the whole of it, and it’s why Alliance Advisory Services does what it does.
