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What Happens To Google Employees When They Die?

Posted by timothy on from the water-returns-to-the-seitch dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Forbes Magazine reports that employee benefits of Google are among the best in the land—free haircuts, gourmet food, on-site doctors and high-tech "cleansing" toilets are among the most talked-about but the latest perk for Googlers extends into the afterlife. 'This might sound ridiculous,' says Google's Chief People Officer Laszlo Bock, 'But we've announced death benefits at Google.' Should a U.S. Googler pass away while under the employ of the 14-year old search giant, their surviving spouse or domestic partner will receive a check for 50% of their salary every year for the next decade. Even more surprising, a Google spokesperson confirms that there's 'no tenure requirement' for this benefit, meaning most of their 34 thousand Google employees qualify."

2 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. That's a good benefit, but not unheard of... by TheRedSeven · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That's essentially a company-paid life insurance policy of 5x annual salary (slightly less, actually, since it's annuitized). When I worked as a call center grunt shortly out of college, we were given a 1x annual salary term life insurance policy paid for by the company. With an option of paying something like $0.35/month for 3x annual salary term life insurance.

    This is really not the crazy-off-the-wall benefit that it's being made out to be. It's good, to be sure, but not unheard of.

  2. Re:It's called insurance, right? by quarkscat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I worked for a time for a multinational company that offered free health insurance. The company was so cash-rich that they self-insured for that coverage, with an umbrella policy for outside insurance for catastrophic (major medical) coverage. The other nations that they had a corporate presence in had socialized medicine (Canada & Britain), and they wanted all their employees to share similar benefits. It made it rather simple accounting-wise to shift employees from one country to another for short & longish term projects. I rather doubt that they have the same benefit package today - that was nearly 20 years ago, and in the USA medical costs have skyrocketed by over 1,000 percent. Self-insurance saved this company a lot of money.

    This is basically what Google is doing with term life insurance, except that the $20 per month they charge sounds rather stingy in comparison, actuarially speaking, considering the average age of Google's employees.