Attorney: Wal-Mart Collected On Deaths [Life Insurance Policies on People Without Telling Them]

Tampa Tribune ^ | Jul 3, 2007 | ELAINE SILVESTRINI

[KarlInOhio]

loosing the replacing -> losing and replacing

What in the world am I doing behind the keyboard?

[longtermmemmory]

key man insurance.

this is just hurt walmart image to force settlement insurance.

[craig_eddy]

I got some bad news for you, you’re going to wind up dead n matter who does or doesn’t have an insurance policy on you.

I know that must be shocking, and I’m sorry to have to break it to you. But alas, that’s one of the problems with being human.

[Abathar]

Why should they even know? It is a business decision only, it has nothing to do with the employee at all.

Unless the policy is in effect after the employee leaves like a regular term life would be, then that is kind of creepy.

We have been doing it here for years, whether the employee wants us to do it or not he can’t stop us from doing it, it’s our businesses expense to replace him if he dies and the policy is dirt cheap.

[SALChamps03]

I think that doing it in secret is the only problem. However, the company claims that employees were notified. If they were, then this is a non issue.

[monday]

So what? Lots of companies take out life insurance on employees. It’s not costing the employees anything. Unless the charge is that Wal Mart is killing it’s employees in order to collect on it’s life insurance policies I fail to see what the big deal is.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

If you ask me that is a disgusting practice and Wallmart should be ashamed of itself, honestly, trying to get a tax break of the death of others? I’m beginning to see why everybody hates them.

Key man life insurance could save your business

Contemplating the death of your company leaders is pretty dismal subject matter. But think of the consequences - businesses have bitten the dust due to the death of just one employee. Key man life insurance is an affordable way to prevent your business from sinking after a critical employee passes away.

Key man life insurance works like individual life insurance - when the insured dies the policy pays out a benefit. Instead of an individual insuring himself or a family member, however, the business owns the policy and pays the premium. If the insured dies, the business is the beneficiary and will receive the policy payout...

[Keith in Iowa]

>>>>It is a standard and prudent practice of companies to have insurance on key personnel.

How are we defining "key"??

If by 'key' you mean manager, department head, etc. yes, but the typical WalMart greeter? Are they key?

It should be against the law for anyone to take out insurance on you without your knowledge - pure and simple.

[Safetgiver]

Who’s paying the premium? A good business venture, IMHO.

[Keith in Iowa]

Key man life insurance works like individual life insurance - when the insured dies the policy pays out a benefit. Instead of an individual insuring himself or a family member, however, the business owns the policy and pays the premium. If the insured dies, the business is the beneficiary and will receive the policy payout...

A great thing - if done in the sunshine, with all participants knowing and approving. What makes WalMart's position weak is that is was done in secrecy.

[ishabibble]

You quite obviously don’t understand this subject at all.

[Keith in Iowa]

>>>I fail to see what the big deal is.

Ho ‘bout the fact it was done without people’s knowledge? Would you want your employer taking out a policy on you without telling you about it?

[KarlInOhio]

We have been doing it here for years, whether the employee wants us to do it or not he can’t stop us from doing it, it’s our businesses expense to replace him if he dies and the policy is dirt cheap.

The difference is that your company is probably small enough where losing an employee will affect the company. Wal-Mart is big enough that they are just playing statistical games. Let's say they figure 0.1% of the employees would die in a year. Insurance will then be 0.11% (or so) of the total insured value. If an average number of Wal-Mart employees die, Wal-Mart falls behind because of the insurance overhead - except that it looks like the insurance payout is tax-free. So the payout of 0.1% times the total insured value (tax free) is more than the premiums of 0.11% times the total value minus tax deductions because the insurance is a "legitimate" business expense.

[dfwgator]

Not to worry, it's all about the low prices on low-quality garbage...........from china!

And of course, Wal-Mart is the ONLY store that sells crap from China. /s

[Michael.SF.]

Why should they even know?

From management perspective I would think notifying an employee of this would be good:

"You are so valuable to us that we have ...."

Everyone likes to feel important and to occasionally be reminded of this.

[Scythian]

You quite obviously don’t understand this subject at all.

I do, it's disgusting ...

[dfwgator]

It should be against the law for anyone to take out insurance on you without your knowledge - pure and simple.

Why? How does it hurt the employee?

[Gabz]

WalMart Hit Piece Ping..............

[discostu]

My employer has insurance policies on every single employee in the engineering department, most of the high end people in the rest of the company, and everybody that’s manager or above. The only reason I found out about it was when we did a gathering of all of engineering and I asked the person that was arranging the travel of the people in my office why we were spread across so many flights. It’s no big deal, doesn’t bother me in the least.

[Lurking in Kansas]

More Wal-Mart bashing. Buried in the story:

Myers said this corporate practice is not uncommon. He estimates that up to 25 percent of Fortune 500 companies have taken out such policies on employees.