Orange County Register takes out 'dead peasant' policies on journalists

[Newsjock]

Source: Los Angeles Times

How's this for a creepy communication from your company management? Earlier this month -- and a few days after about 30 newsroom employees at the Orange County Register were laid off -- many of those who remained employed got an email informing them that the company wished to buy life insurance on them.

The beneficiaries of these million-dollar-plus policies wouldn't be the employees or their families, but the company -- more specifically, its pension plan.

... The emails included consent forms. Why? Because the company can't capture the considerable federal tax benefits that come with such insurance unless it has the insured employee's permission.

Let's place this ghoulish corporate strategy in perspective. The first thing you may want to know is that this sort of policy is not illegal. It's known formally as COLI, for "company owned life insurance," and less politely as "dead peasant" insurance. That's a reference to Nikolai Gogol's classic comic novel "Dead Souls," which is about a con man who crisscrosses czarist Russia buying up dead serfs so he can use them as collateral for a business deal.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-oc-register-20140128,0,4901450.story

[hobbit709]

1. Maybe the employees can take out dead overlord policies.

[Lint Head]

2. I've known about this for years and got into an argument with a conservative asshat about it.

He said that the company needs to have protection against the death of an employee because the employee is a commodity. I replied, "So we are owned by the corporation? Isn't that technically slavery?". He had no come back. I think it should be illegal as hell. They take these policies out most of the time without the knowledge of the employee because if the employee.

[jsr]

3. We know what happens if the employee refuses to sign the consent form.