These original Kirt's Cogitations™ may be reproduced (no more than 5, please) provided proper credit is given to me, Kirt Blattenberger.

Please click here to return to the Table of Contents.

   Cog·i·ta·tion [koj-i-tey'-shun] – noun: Concerted thought or reflection; meditation; contemplation.
   Kirt [kert] – proper noun: RF Cafe webmaster.

Does Your Employer Want You Dead?

Corporate America reportedly pays up to $8 billion per year for "hedging" life insurance policies on their employees (formally "Corporate-Owned Life Insurance"), and name itself as the beneficiary. These policies make up more than 20% of all life insurance policies sold, and can pay sizeable sums, tax-free, if an employee (or sometimes ex-employee) dies. Among the hundreds of companies that have taken out such hedging policies on the lives of valuable employees are Wal-Mart and Walt Disney, Winn-Dixie markets and Dow Chemical, Nestle and Enron, Pitney Bowes and Procter & Gamble, AT&T and J.P. Morgan Chase. Most states require the employee to be notified, but the six of them that do not (known as the "Dead Peasant Insurance" states) are Delaware, Georgia, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Vermont. You just might be worth more to your employer dead than alive!