Questions about Personal Guarantee Insurance
Plain-English answers for borrowers, families, lenders, and advisors.
Basics
Personal Guarantee Insurance, or PGI, is borrower-side insurance designed to help cover eligible personal losses if a personal guarantee is enforced.
It does not remove the guarantee, prevent default, or change the lender's rights. Coverage depends on underwriting, exclusions, limits, state availability, documentation, and policy terms.
Most business risks have insurance. The personal guarantee often does not.
A borrower can underwrite the business, negotiate the loan, and prepare for closing, while the largest unprotected risk still sits at home: savings, home equity, investments, credit, spouse, and family balance sheet.
Ink exists because the personal guarantee deserves its own risk-transfer product.
No. PGI is not SBA insurance.
The SBA guaranty supports the lender. The borrower's personal guarantee is separate. PGI is designed around the borrower's personal downside if a covered personal guarantee loss occurs.
The borrower still signs the applicable loan and guarantee documents.
No. PGI is optional borrower-side insurance.
It should not be presented as lender-required, SBA-required, or a substitute for collateral, underwriting, or loan requirements.
Who it's for
Ink is for borrowers or guarantors who are signing a personal guarantee and want to protect the personal downside.
PGI may be especially relevant if the guarantee could affect your savings, investments, home equity, spouse, family, credit, bankruptcy analysis, or future borrowing ability.
This is not just a loan question. It is a personal balance sheet question.
No. Ink is starting with SBA 7(a) borrowers broadly, not only acquisition borrowers.
Acquisition loans are an important use case because the guarantee can be large and the borrower is often taking on new operating risk. But the broader category is personal-guarantee-backed business debt.
PGI may be relevant for SBA 7(a) borrowers signing personal guarantees for acquisitions, expansion, working capital, partner buyouts, real estate, equipment, or other business purposes.
The key question is not only how the loan is used. The key question is whether you are personally guaranteeing business debt and whether the downside could materially affect your personal balance sheet.
Maybe not.
Ownership percentage can affect whether you are required to sign a personal guarantee, but the answer depends on the loan, lender, SBA rules, ownership structure, collateral, and documents.
If you are not personally guaranteeing the loan, PGI may not be relevant. Ask your lender and attorney whether you are signing a guarantee.
It still may.
Spousal exposure can depend on state law, asset title, community-property rules, jointly owned assets, home equity, and the loan documents.
Ink does not provide legal advice, so spouse and asset-title questions should be reviewed with your attorney.
PGI is designed to help cover eligible personal losses tied to a covered personal guarantee claim.
That may help borrowers plan around outcomes that could otherwise affect personal assets, credit, or bankruptcy analysis. PGI does not guarantee that bankruptcy, credit impact, collection activity, or legal exposure will be avoided.
Ink is preparing to launch state by state. Planned launch states:
Availability depends on licensing, carrier approval, surplus lines eligibility where applicable, underwriting rules, and policy terms.
Requesting availability is not an application for insurance and does not create coverage.
Timing & process
You can talk to Ink anytime you are considering a business loan that requires a personal guarantee.
The earlier you understand the exposure, the easier it is to plan. You can apply anytime from when your lender has approved your loan up until 180 days after closing.
Apply once the loan is real enough to evaluate.
That usually means your lender has approved the loan, issued a term sheet or commitment letter, or provided loan terms specific enough to understand the loan amount, collateral, guarantee scope, borrower profile, and business being financed.
Yes, if you closed within 180 days of your application date, your application is still accepted.
Ink is designed to run alongside the loan process, not inside it.
The process is built to leverage many of the same materials already used in your lender application, so borrowers are not starting from scratch.
Timing still depends on complete information, state availability, underwriting review, policy documentation, and how close you are to closing. The earlier you start, the easier it is to avoid last-minute pressure.
Ink generally uses documents already prepared for the lender.
Required:
- SBA Form 1919 — Borrower Information Form
- SBA Loan Authorization & Agreement
- SBA Form 148 or 148L — Unconditional Guarantee
- SBA Form 413 — Personal Financial Statement
- Personal tax returns — last 2 years
- Business tax returns — last 2 years, if applicable
- SBA Form 1050 — Settlement Sheet
- Business plan
As needed:
- Business financials / P&L
- Resume or owner profile
- Quality of Earnings report, if applicable
- SBA Form 159 — Fee Disclosure, if applicable
- Seller note, if applicable
Exact requests vary by loan and borrower.
PGI is borrower-side insurance. It does not change your loan requirements, collateral requirements, or SBA obligations.
If your lender asks about the policy, premium financing, source of funds, or post-close insurance arrangements, answer accurately and involve counsel as needed.
Do not present PGI as lender protection, credit enhancement, or a substitute for anything your lender requires.
Coverage & claims
PGI is designed to cover eligible personal losses tied to enforcement of a covered personal guarantee.
Coverage depends on underwriting, exclusions, limits, documentation, state availability, and policy terms.
The basic idea is simple: if business recovery is not enough and a covered deficiency remains, the policy can pay covered loss according to its terms.
If your business can no longer meet its loan obligations, you notify Ink to begin the claims process.
As business assets are applied toward the outstanding loan balance, there is often a gap between what is recovered from the business and what you personally owe under your guarantee.
That is where Ink is designed to step in: if the claim is covered, the policy can pay up to the coverage limit you selected, helping protect your personal assets from the remaining covered balance.
Actual payment depends on the policy, required documentation, claim facts, exclusions, limits, and terms.
Ink helps with funds to hire a professional to help work out a deal with the lender.
If no deal is reached, the business is worked out first.
Business assets, collateral, and recovery value are used to reduce the debt. If a covered post-recovery deficiency remains under the personal guarantee, PGI can pay covered loss according to the policy.
This is why PGI is not lender protection or credit enhancement. It is designed around the borrower's personal exposure after business recovery.
The intended structure is for PGI to pay covered loss after business recovery and before covered personal assets are pursued.
Exact timing depends on the policy, lender process, claim facts, required documentation, and whether the loss is covered.
No. The guarantee remains in place.
PGI does not remove, modify, reduce, or replace the guarantee. It is separate borrower-side insurance.
The better framing is that PGI can pay covered personal losses if the guarantee is enforced and the claim is covered. Home equity exposure, homestead rules, exemptions, and asset title should be reviewed with an attorney.
It depends on the policy, borrower structure, and whether your spouse is a co-guarantor, co-borrower, co-owner, or owner of jointly held assets.
Spousal exposure can also depend on state law and asset title. Ask Ink about policy structure and ask your attorney about legal exposure.
What PGI does not do
The policy does not cover everything that can go wrong in a business or loan.
Common exclusions or non-covered areas may include:
- Guarantees on unrelated loans
- Personal debts unrelated to the covered business loan
- Fraud or material misrepresentation
- Claims arising before the policy effective date
- Business losses
- Business continuity expenses
- Events outside the policy terms
Actual exclusions are governed by the policy.
No. PGI should not be marketed or relied on as credit enhancement.
It does not make the loan safer for the lender, replace collateral, change underwriting, or satisfy SBA or lender requirements.
PGI is designed for the borrower, not the lender.
No. PGI does not replace collateral, change collateral requirements, or reduce what a lender may require before closing.
It is separate borrower-side insurance that may cover eligible personal losses if the guarantee is enforced and the claim is covered.
No. Ink does not provide legal, tax, or financial advice.
Borrowers should review personal guarantees, collateral, spouse exposure, state-law exemptions, and asset-title questions with their own advisors.
No, PGI does not prevent default or make the business safer. However, Ink helps with funds to hire a professional to help work out a deal with the lender.
PGI itself is designed for eligible personal losses tied to a personal guarantee after business recovery, if the claim is covered.
No.
Coverage is designed to be underwritten before known distress, default, or claim facts exist. If the business is already in trouble, coverage may be limited or unavailable.
This is why borrowers should talk to Ink before closing, not after the downside is already visible.
Pricing
Pricing is determined through underwriting.
Relevant factors may include loan amount, business type, business performance, loan structure, operator background, personal financial profile, state availability, coverage structure, and policy terms.
No premium is final until confirmed in writing.
Pricing depends on your loan amount, the business being financed, your credit profile, and the business's liquidation value.
Book a call with the Ink team and we will walk you through what to expect for your specific loan.
Premium financing may be available depending on final program structure, lender treatment, underwriting, state availability, and policy terms.
Do not assume the premium can be financed unless Ink and your lender confirm it.
Ink does not provide tax advice.
Ask your CPA whether the premium is deductible based on your facts, who pays it, how the policy is structured, and how the business and loan are documented.
About Ink
Ink is led by Jason Hunt and Devyn McNicoll.
Jason founded Ink after kicking off his second search and realizing the personal guarantee on an acquisition could impact his spouse's business and family balance sheet.
Devyn McNicoll leads actuarial, pricing, and underwriting model development. She brings formal actuarial and predictive-modeling experience to a category where pricing discipline matters as much as customer demand.
Ink is building Personal Guarantee Insurance with a simple premise: the personal guarantee deserves its own risk-transfer product.
Ink's actuarial and underwriting model work is led by Devyn McNicoll, ACAS, CSPA, MAAA.
That matters because Personal Guarantee Insurance is not just a marketing idea. It requires risk selection, pricing discipline, claims design, state-by-state availability, and a clear definition of what is and is not covered.
Ink is building those controls into the product from the start.
Yes. Ink is venture capital backed by investors including TenOneTen, Everywhere Ventures, Hustle Fund, and Park Ranger Capital.
That backing helps Ink build the insurance, underwriting, regulatory, and distribution infrastructure required to bring a new insurance category to market.
Ink is preparing to launch in summer 2026, starting state by state.
Launch timing depends on licensing, underwriting readiness, policy documentation, carrier approval, and state availability.
Ink is not rushing the launch because PGI only works if the product is narrow, priced carefully, and supported by real insurance infrastructure.
You can join Ink's update list, request your state, estimate your PG exposure, or book a call if you are actively considering a loan with a personal guarantee.
If you are early, start with the calculator. If you are preapproved or nearing closing, talk to Ink.
Signing a personal guarantee?
Talk through the exposure before you sign.