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Comment by WrtCdEvrydy | Hacker News Reader

"Since we're not requiring vaccinations, will the company be paying a 5 million dollar life insurance policy for my family as beneficiaries? I'm fine dying but I like to put a price on my own life"

This is what I would say if I worked at a place which actually wanted people to come back to the office.

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> will the company be paying a 5 million dollar life insurance policy for my family as beneficiaries?

Isn't life insurance a standard part of employment benefits?

So, yes, they will be.

Usually, but that's usually a 2x current yearly pay rate and it's usually capped at 100k.

A 5 million dollar life insurance is a "key person" policy... if it's some important to the business that I be on site during a health emergency, they can keep half of the max 10 million and my family can get the rest.

> it's usually capped at 100k

That's a pretty crappy life insurance policy. I wouldn't want my wife having to recreate an independent life on a runway of just 100k.

I'm not a big shot, but I'm set up so that if I die my wife won't have to worry about work for a very long time. These policies probably aren't as expensive as you think they are.

The company provided life insurance policies are usually group policies that will cover people regardless of condition--which is why they are so low in value.

A 10 mil life insurance policy would require underwriting and, assuming you are healthy, will run between $60k and $120k a year. As a faceless corporate board member, why not just let you flounder while instructing management to find an engineer that is not as expensive?

I think inflation is gonna bite a lotta people in the near future

> A 10 mil life insurance policy would require underwriting and, assuming you are healthy, will run between $60k and $120k a year.

That's bonkers - a £10 million policy was quoted to me at £4.5k a year.

No, that sounds about right - maybe you are looking at a different kind of life insurance. Just take the SSA yearly chance of dying (the real chance of dying is likely less if you are healthy, but on average this should be the price) from [0] and multiply by 10 million. Only 16k for a 25 year old but around 160k for an average 65 year old.

[0] https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

> Only 16k for a 25 year old but around 160k for an average 65 year old.

I mean you can just go on a price comparison site right now for yourself and see that this isn't even remotely the price quoted for multiple providers and a wide range of levels of cover - nothing is even remotely close to even 16k.

I think those quoting huge costs are looking at whole life whereas the rest are looking at term life. Looking at one place, if you're 30 years old, and getting only 100K for whole life, the premium is over $1400/yr. Multiply that by 10 for 1M and it's 14K/yr.

People often get these expensive plans because they can treat it as a retirement fund, and can borrow against it at any time with no penalties, etc. With term life your premiums are wasted if you cancel at 65. With whole life, you get back your premiums, and their growth (you may be able to control the investment vehicle as well).

Isn’t that life assurance not life insurance?

Wow I’m paying 500/year for $1M 20 year term. That’s where I estimated my numbers from.

From my perspective term makes more sense. I will have a net worth over $1m in 20 years and that’s more than enough for my family to survive on. The insurance is mainly for my family in case something happens to me in the near term.

A term policy is more, I’m not sure what the rates are for non-term but I wouldn’t buy a non term policy. That’s literally throwing away money, but I guess from a business perspective it’s just a cost so you may be “more” right :)

Good luck proving you caught sars in the office and not going to the super market or in your own home.

Wouldn’t life insurance cover disease no matter where you caught it? I thought they only exclude suicide, war, committing crimes, and maybe dangerous sports.

Workplace life insurance generally covers you when you die on the job

Do you carry a normal $5,000,000 life insurance policy?

We carry a standard 2x Yearly Pay Rate but it's capped at 100k.

On the contrary, OSHA all but nixed such requirements:

If you require your employees to be vaccinated as a condition of employment (i.e., for work-related reasons), then any adverse reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine is work-related.

https://www.natlawreview.com/article/osha-s-new-guidance-rec...

So you're not vaccinated?

I am, but the organization isn't requiring it, so we can't guarantee herd immunity.

Edit: It's a moot point because the management are the ones driving the "safety above all, stay in your houses" strategy.

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