How do you like your life being reduced to a poker chip?  

Sick indeed. They may require employee consent now but as your 'evil little mind' says, what might happen to those who refuse?

And with a financial incentive for their employees to die, what incentives are there for companies to improve health and safety practices? Or to invest in the best medical insurance possible for their employees? Or even to care about their employees dying at all? After all, the sooner you die, the more money they make.

In the case of my company, which is, of course, health insurance, our insurance choices are limited to company insurance #1 (HMO), #2 (PPO) and #3 (POS). And as a health insurance company, they actually do a lot to improve health and safety practices. But I can see where this could go...

lmao on that last one...

I must confess it's not something I've looked into closely. I came across it a few weeks ago but I wasn't aware Michael Moore had included it in 'Capitalism - A love Story' until a couple of days ago.

Gambling on the failure of companies; or the failure of someone to pay off their mortgage debt; or the effects of climate change on developing nations (cap and trade) is undoubtedly low and despicable, but gambling on how soon someone will die is something I don't have a word for.

Just another table in the Casino At The End Of The World...

Thank you for honoring me with the BR, EoE!!

I'm not too sure how it all works but I get the impression that the employee gets no benefit whatsoever, or any say in it for that matter, though Holly's info above may cast further light on it all. I only saw two figures mentioned in the short clip - $1.9 million and $339,000 or thereabouts. So I don't think the company lost out in terms of insurance payments, and they got a tax break. A win-win for companies and a lose-die for employees. What more could a company ask for from their workforce?

Well obviously an early death.

If I could just add for those who didn't go to the Wikipedia link--that originally this whole plan came about due to the idea that the lives of the powerful executives be insured, due to the high cost to the companies for having to replace them. Believe it or not--this is jokingly referred to as E-COLI.

However, it was due to the huge tax benefits that companies receive for insuring their executives that caused the expansion of the corporate owned life insurance policies to become the "dead peasants" insurance. If those tax benefits hadn't been part of the pretty package, then I doubt anyone would have ever heard of this practice at all, nor--more importantly, would it have expanded.

Another practice that I read about while at the Wiki page was even more diabolical in my mind. It's known as Settlement or Spin insurance. The idea behind this pure evil in my opinion. A group of investors get together and offer to purchase life insurance for senior citizens--now mind you, they don't know the senior citizens, nor are they related to them. They also very likely don't know each other, they are just purely investors in the scheme. They invest in the life insurance policies and then sit and wait for the senior citizens to die. That's why it's only offered to senior citizens. A quicker return on their investment and there are no taxes on death benefits.

The senior citizen signs up for the program thinking that they are leaving behind a little something to cover their remaining bills and funeral expenses--which is the case, but unbeknownst to them, the policies are written for a much larger payout than what they are told and their families only receive a small portion--the rest goes to the investors.

Apparently it's considered a legal practice, as long as the investors aren't related and don't know the insured. But, in this Information Age--how difficult do you think that information would be to find out? What if some investors didn't want to wait for Mother Nature to take her course?

I often wonder how these kinds of people can sleep at night!

They can't, like all vampires.

They CAN, that's the really sick part...

I have to agree with Dawn, although I get EoE's point. In this country, money is GOD--the corporations and their ilk pray to it morning, noon and night (in their sleep). They only have a conscience when they're caught, IF they are caught. But, since the average American, myself included, doesn't even know these kinds of programs exist, unless someone else brings it to our attention, then they gleefully continue without so much as a slap on the wrist.

My son worked for a company that took government contracts. He's a painter and they hired him to paint military vehicles and equiptment.

He was sitting nearby when I opened this discussion to see what responses had been, and he asked me about the topic. I asked him, after explaining to him what it was about, whether or not he knew if this particular company had taken insurace out on him...I was half joking. He said, 'Yes, they had." And they were quite bold about it...telling him that his training had cost them money and this was how the would get that back. Apparently it was a hot topic in the break room for several days and most just said "Oh well, what can we do?"

Sue them!

see deadpeasantinsurance.com below

Too many companies take pension funds and gamble with them. Then they say they can't afford to pay the full amount of pensions when you retire. Speaking of which, the UK government is going to raise the retirement age in a couple of years. Maybe they lost too much at the casino.

I can't remember the last time a government was penalised, but then they make the laws.

Yes, morals seem to be in short supply these days.

Why not ask their lawyer Mike Myers @

http://deadpeasantinsurance.com