Jim Thomason's "The Business of People"

Thomas Nelson has more long-serving employees than most companies I've seen, and certainly more than any where I've worked previously. Our avoidable turnover last year was 6.6%, down from 7.4% the year before. These are excellent numbers for which we can be understandably proud, but it leads to an emerging need to emphasize benefits for older workers. This post focuses on life insurance issues for our older employees, and strategies for those (like me!) who are getting there. Our basic life insurance benefit, 100% paid by the company, is 2 times base salary. You can also purchase supplemental life insurance ("supp life"), and the combined base and supplemental cannot exceed $1 million or 5 times base salary. But beware of limitations based upon eligibility, income, and age. First of all, you can only elect to purchase supp life when you are first eligible for benefits. You have 31 days after you become eligible to elect , then after that you can "buy-up" add...