Talk:Corporate-owned life insurance

Comments
Tagged for merge to 'Insurance' although the article itself discusses a slanf term and could be tagged Vfd instead...Hmmm. Eddie.willers 03:59, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I kind of disagree with the merge. This is a term actually used, and it includes more detail than should be in the insurance article. Now that the article is relatively neutral and factual, I think it can stand on it's own. If you see specific problems with the article let me know and I'll try to research it more. - Taxman Talk 15:40, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
 * I could see moving the article to Corporate-owned life insurance, as this is a more neutral term. Foxxygirltamara 09:16, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, that would probably make sense. Then expand that article to include the other uses of the term and just mention this one is just that, a sometimes used term. I think I'll do the move now, then later see if I can dig up any references for the other uses of COLI. - Taxman Talk 15:28, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Are there any material differences between the build of a COLI product and a BOLI product?

While there are no required product differences with respect to BOLI vs. COLI. BOLI is distinct due to the regulatory nature of banks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Golferguy1878 (talk • contribs) 18:59, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The explanation of how this concept works (paragraph two) is very confusing and not understandable to the lay person. It needs to be simplified or expanded upon so that someone without a degree in business or economics would be able to understand the process, at least on a basic level. Springreturning 06:59, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Low Quality Article, Lacking Informationa and Highly Biased, Should Be Treated Separately from Insurance
This topic should not be moved. However, this topic as covered is VERY BIASED.

There are multiple types of COLI. The article focuses on one type, which is primarily LEVERAGED COLI in such a way that it improperly addresses its legislative and regulatory history, and makes the practice appear much worse than it was. There WAS a period where some companies used practices that may be considered abusive. However, not all leveraged COLI was abusive.

There is a second type of COLI, that is not generally leveraged, doesn't rely upon tax deductions, and is a way to build assets and offset risk. This type of COLI was codified by the COLI Best Practices act referenced in the article. Additionally, BOLI falls in this category and therefore is not like Leveraged COLI outlined above.

Additionally, under the forms of COLI codified by the Best Practices Act, moral and political concerns have been addressed.

I have over 30 years of experience in the industry and can cite sources in addition to my own expertise.

Leveraged COLI is no longer practiced. Non-leveraged COLI and BOLI, very legitimate practices, are still in use.

I will be discussing with my company whether we may want to take on correcting this article, which presently is very incomplete, and very biased, to present a better explanation and a more balanced article.

Kevin Bachler 14 December 2020

A question on COLI
Can a job position (such as CEO) be insured for full-time, knowledgable and competent status, instead of an individual persons life being insured? The benefits of such is that Corps always have a relevant interest in a job position being competently filled, but never should have an interest on specific employees (unless said employee is truly irreplaceable). The money gained from such a policy might be limited at specific times to that which is needed to get the job competently filled, and maybe to replace lost income to an extent (barring manipulative practices such as firing people for little or no cause during a recession to collect on the pre-recession expected income). --Formerly the IP-Address 24.22.227.53 (talk) 13:15, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

While it may be possible, it wouldn't have the tax treatment of life insurance which is important to the nature of COLI. A specific life to be insured is required. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.71.208.50 (talk) 03:12, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Moral or political fallout
This article should have more coverage on the moral and political debates around COLI. For example, some discussion of Capitalism: A Love Story would be worthwhile. --63.119.93.194 (talk) 19:03, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Also, the first couple paragraphs imply that it is no longer widespread for companies to take out so-called "dead peasant" policies on large numbers of employees. But in Capitalism: A Love Story, Michael Moore interviews a lawyer working on these cases who claims that many major corporations currently hold these policies on their employees. I think some sources are needed for the claim that "Today, COLI is most common for senior executives of a firm." --Al Bradbury (talk) 21:24, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
 * In today's episode of Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Keith's hour-long "Special Comment" features a segment on these policies. Should be a day or two until the transcript of the show should be available for sourcing. -- RoninBK T C 02:35, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Correction, it's up already at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33213245/ns/msnbc_tv-countdown_with_keith_olbermann -- RoninBK T C 02:40, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the above comments. The article's tone, in my opinion, is clearly pro-business. "Dead peasant insurance" does not refer to insurance in which the employee's family is the beneficiary. "Dead peasant insurance" clearly refers to the corporation as the beneficiary, even after the employee may have left employment. Also, in the vast majority of cases, the employee did not know about the life insurance policy held by the company. The article implies, or states, that the employee knew about the policy. The article misses the essence of the disgust and outrage towards corporate owned insurance on rank and file employees without their knowledge. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.172.248.140 (talk) 09:31, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Where's the Legislative History?
Exactly where is the legislative history on this practice? I would like to pull up some archives if anybody wants to give me a starting point.

I need to know what year companies started doing this? shari74@gmail.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.49.126.107 (talk) 01:28, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Folks...The Michael Moore material, the Keith O. piece and the ABC piece all refer to outdated practices pre the 2006 legislation. Look at Sept. 24 Associated Press piece that serves as a Fact Check and show that Moore says in fine type at the end of movie that the COLI policies by Wal-Mart all were dropped. Corporate owned life insurance and bank owned life insurance must: 1.) Be on the top 35 percent of employees measured in pay. 2. Must have the consent of the employee. 3.) Must be used to offset other benefit expenses such as executive comp or rank and file health and 401K. There is really no doubt about any of this. Please see AP article. Mr. Moore, Mr. O and ABC are flogging a horse that died four years ago...

Legislation http://www.plannedfinancial.com/eFlash/E-Flash_30_December_2006.pdf AP Article http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iWwwKSw-HRMO3yL-7Rxo7fEwv8JwD9ATKQNO0 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rrfrump (talk • contribs) 15:11, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Naming and US-specificness
A perennial issue in article naming is what to do when we have a topic that isn't inherently US-specific, but our treatment of it is (I suppose it could happen with any country, but it's usually the US). They're often tagged with globalize/US, and that often doesn't do much good. Naturally, some editors get impatient and want to move the article, Foo, to Foo in the United States. That can fit the article's scope better, but what do you do with the base title? Having "Foo" redirect to "Foo in the United States" just reflects the same bias. IMO, it's worse, because an incomplete article is one thing; redirecting like that implies US treatment is what really matters. And of course, making such a move without a redirect is just going to make information on the topic hard to find. You could try to write something more globalized at the base title, but if you could do that, you could just globalize the article to begin with.

When an article's title and scope are out of sync, there isn't always a right answer as to which one you update. But in cases like these, precedent has been against changing the title, generally because there is no deadline. See, for example, Talk:Mobile phones on aircraft. --BDD (talk) 21:51, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Dead Souls
I've removed this:
 * [Dead Peasants] refers to the plot of Nikolai Gogol's novel Dead Souls.[ ]

The cited article does not say that the term comes from Dead Souls, or even mention the phrase "dead peasants". It merely makes a comparison with the novel. In fact, the scheme in the novel is completely different.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:49, 18 August 2014 (UTC)