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Comment by westicle | Hacker News Reader

I just left an employer who had 100% salary continuance insurance in place.

Maybe mine is the minority view, but I found it a horrendous waste. When I left the employer it offered to have my portion of the policy transferred to me personally so that I could "continue to enjoy the benefits". I didn't even bother responding (despite leaving on otherwise very good terms).

While I work, I expect to be remunerated. But I don't allow myself the hubris to expect that remuneration should continue in perpetuity. If I decide not to work, or am unable to work, I would prefer to adjust my circumstances to accommodate that fact, rather than continue to pretend otherwise.

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I'll resist speaking ad hominem and try to generalize here.

I've found that founders that are married/have kids are much more concerned about HR policies that protect an employee's family, while startups with younger/single founders usually don't put as much thought into it.

I know from my own experience as a founder in my 20s and now in my 30s that this shift occurs.

The issue with long term disability is that the startup can make a statement to its employees that it will provide for that individual as well as that individual's family--through maternity/paternity policies, vacation time, health and life insurance, and long term disability.

Employees with dependents need this type of security and actively search out the companies that provide it. It's one of the reasons the startup community loses so many great engineers to larger companies, even though those engineers would prefer a startup. Not enough thought put into family security.

You're married with two young children. While commuting to the office one day, you're severely injured in a car accident. This injury is so severe that you're unable to return to work, but not severe enough to kill you.

Congratulations! Your partner not only has to care for you for the rest of your life -- he/she also has to go to work full-time so your kids don't starve.

>-- he/she also has to go to work full-time so your kids don't starve.

And why is that so bad? The other parent already worked full-time before accident.

Hubris? You're paying what you and the insurance company deems a fair price to ensure that you and your family aren't screwed if you become disabled.

Screw adjusting to circumstances, if there's a fair, legal way to keep my kids from being homeless, why shouldn't I take it?

If you bought an annuity, you would expect it pay for the rest of your life -- that's how annuities work. If you baought a special discounted annuity that only paid in case you were injured it should. That's not hubris, that's a contract.

On the other hand, I would be very surpised if someone offered 100% salary long-term disability -- the potential for claims at the margin and actual fraud increases dramatically.

I don't see it as 'expecting remuneration to continue', so much as I see it as simply paying for insurance of income.

Life insurance is essentially the same thing, as far as I'm concerned: I'm paying now so that if / when something in the future happens, there is a financial aspect that helps me / my family.

So out of curiosity, do you consider life insurance the same way?

Yes, but even more so if that makes sense.

I cancelled the life insurance policy which was automatically included in my retirement savings several years ago. I don't have any debt (even my mobile phone is pre-paid) so life insurance is basically a massive bet on me dying with no real upside.

Again, YMMV and some people consider it a worthwhile investment. Just trying to contribute my point of view to the discussion.

Out of curiosity, and this may be a little too personal, but do you have any dependents at all?

For me, at least, the upside is that when I die my wife and kids are going to be well and truly debt free.

On the other hand, if we were already debt free, or I didn't have those dependents, then that would probably change my outlook on the policy, for sure.

Insurance is about distributing risk. Instead of e.g. 2% of people taking a 100% loss, 100% of people take a 2% loss. Since a guaranteed 2% loss is way more palatable to many people than a chance of a 100% loss, this works out well for many people.

It's not "hubris", it's simple economics. If you don't like it, you don't have to take it, of course. You're allowed to take the option of being forced to live on the streets if you suffer an injury that makes you unable to work for a living. But don't think that other people are somehow deranged for disagreeing.

I never said that I consider my view objectively correct or superior... and never intended to imply that a contrary view would be deranged! Far from it; I explicitly recognised that mine was probably a minority view.

However the submission implicitly assumes that this option is right for everyone ("The one HR benefit that every startup should add"). I recognise that some people see it as valuable. Hopefully those people can also recognise that other people don't!

I also think the strawman of "Take disability insurance or live on the streets" is rather hyperbolic. The actual alternative is relying on social security disability payments and my existing savings vs an insurance-funded pension. Maybe I'll have to let my chauffeur go, but I'm hardly going to be sleeping in gutters if I take the former option.

My wife's working through the social security disability process, and it's not something you can rely on for months if not years (assuming your appeal of the nearly guaranteed initial denial even works!). If she had been our family's single income we'd be destitute.

That sucks... sorry to hear it.

My country doesn't seem to have implemented the blanket-denial first stage of the process yet, however luckily I have savings which could tide me over until the payments get backdated in that eventuality.

Sorry, when I saw you describe taking the insurance as "hubris", that looked to me like a value judgment.

> If you don't like it, you don't have to take it, of course.

Unless you live in a country that funds such programs via taxation, which is most (all?) Western democracies.

Sigh, I should have known I'd get a reply like this.

The conversation is about commercial, private insurance plans, not about government social security systems. That is what the "it" refers to. You are talking about something completely different.

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