by Work-at-Home.org

This is a question most of us who work at home never even thought of until the news broke nationwide that a national retail chain had taken out 350,000 life insurance policies on its employees, naming itself as the beneficiary.

Work at home employees and independent contractors… is it appropriate for our employers to take out life insurance policies on us naming themselves as the beneficiaries in the event of our death? Is it more likely that companies would buy policies on those of us who work at home for them, or less?

On the one hand you could argue that if an employer is paying the insurance premiums they have every right to purchase any life insurance product they wish. Perhaps some of their reasoning is the fact that they would incur certain expenses if they lost employees… loss of revenue or production losses, cost of retraining, etc.

On the other hand it’s an unsettling feeling to think that your employer may have a life insurance policy on you.

The practice doesn’t appear to be widespread and maybe you don't care, but if you’re interested in knowing whether or not your company has an insurance policy on you, there are ways to find out. If you work at home as a work athome employee or a work at home independent contractor, you may have a contract with the company. This will most likely be the case if you are a work at home contractor. Check your contract to see if there is any mention of such an Agreement. If the subject is not addressed at all in the contract you can ask your supervisor or contact at the company whether or not the company has such a policy on you. If you work at home you may or may not be able to contact the same Human Resource Dept. as the regular on-site employees. Sometimes there is a special work at home Liaison Officer or Work at Home Coordinator who deals with the employees or independent contractors who work at home.

If you’re not able to get information from the company itself you may be able to look up their SEC filings. Such documents reflect their financial records and may include revenue from life insurance payoffs.

I work at home and personally I wouldn’t care if my employer had a life insurance policy on me. Maybe it would help them get over the extremely huge loss they would suffer in the event that I wasn’t here working at home, working my backside off for them all day. Afterall, I'm not replaceable.

At least I can dream.