U.S. Profit Making Orgnaisations Can Take Out 'Peasant' Insurance on Staff and Take The Payout

I watched a movie on (Australian) TV last night. I only watched this by accident and I did not hear or all of it due to a bit of a family crisis going on at the same time so there is more in this move than these few things I could barely believe.

I Must find out if these kinds of things happen in Australia too.

Private Juvenile Detention - One County in Pennsylvania hired a private company to deal with juveniles, owned by two entrepreneurs, one of whom was a lawyer who used his influence to shut down the county's public juvenile facility, and helped the private company get the $58 million contract to provide services to the County..

One juvenile was placed in detention for making a MySpace page mocking her school Principal. Kids were sentenced to a set period by the judges who got kickbacks for providing the kids to the facility, but the detention period was often extended by the facilities management and so they made more money.

Low Paid Pilots - Regional airline pilots are often paid salaries less than those paid to fast food restaurant managers. I gathered that the pilot of the plane that landed the plane in the Hudson river lost his pension over that incident.

Dead peasants insurance - When a middle level management employee for a bank died the bank received nearly $5 million in life insurance payouts while his family got nothing because the bank took the policy out on the employee and made itself the beneficiary. With this type of insurance the employer has a vested interest in the death of the employee.

A former loan officer for a financial organization, offered discounted loans with good rates and low, or no, fees to VIPs, including lawmakers.

The FBI warned of an approaching "epidemic" of mortgage fraud in 2004 saying that 80% of the mortgage fraud was induced by the banks, not the individuals seeking loans.

After 9/11, more than 500 FBI white collar crime specialists were transferred over to terrorism.

There is a section in this movie where Michael More talks to ministers of the cloth who are not in favor of capitalism at all and he talks to some wall street people who are not in favor of democracy.

Link to the movie

Now that corporations are "people" too, can we put life insurance on them? I really doubt that it is possible to put a policy on them.

The FBI warned of an approaching "epidemic" of mortgage fraud in 2004 saying that 80% of the mortgage fraud was induced by the banks, not the individuals seeking loans.


This is something that is out there for people to see plain as day, such as 15 bankers piling into Summers office, demanding he stop some legislation in 1994 that was going to put the kabosh on derivatives trading via regulation.

Originally posted by MichiganSwampBuck
Now that corporations are "people" too, can we put life insurance on them? I really doubt that it is possible to put a policy on them.

I just cannot see how they can take out peasants insurance because as I understand the principles of insurance law, I cannot take out insurance on your house with myself as the beneficiary because I then have a vested interest in your house burning down. Still; they seem to get away with it. I find it staggering that they can do and that the family get nothing.

Originally posted by learnatic

Originally posted by MichiganSwampBuck
Now that corporations are "people" too, can we put life insurance on them? I really doubt that it is possible to put a policy on them.

I just cannot see how they can take out peasants insurance because as I understand the principles of insurance law, I cannot take out insurance on your house with myself as the beneficiary because I then have a vested interest in your house burning down. Still; they seem to get away with it. I find it staggering that they can do and that the family get nothing.

These people that the companies put insurance on are not part of the elite so they are to be used as the elite see fit. The middle class and poor are just part of the herd using resources that belong to the elite so when they die the elite wants to get as much profit as possible and insurance is the only way to do this.

reply to post by learnatic

After 9/11, more than 500 FBI white collar crime specialists were transferred over to terrorism.

Remember in building 7 that's where all the files showing wall street fraud were being stored. Small wonder why a building with a little fire would suddenly collapse.

S+F

I've heard about "peasant insurance" before and it's not just banks doing it.

Wiki

Corporate-owned life insurance (COLI) ... was originally purchased on the lives of key employees and executives by a company to hedge against the financial cost of losing key employees to unexpected death, the risk of recruiting and training replacements of necessary or highly-trained personnel, or to fund corporate obligations to redeem stock upon the death of an owner.

Primarily in the 1990s, some companies aggressively insured a broad base of employees, as part of general hiring requirements, and never without the employee's written consent. During the hiring process, employees sign many documents, including life, health and welfare coverage agreements or applications for insurance. Additionally, up until 1984, certain premiums for life insurance were leveraged and deducted, in essence creating a transaction with highest possible tax benefits. Even today, when a COLI plan's death benefits are paid to an employees family directly, the company paying the premiums can deduct them from corporate profits and earnings legally.

It's a disgusting tactic corporations use to suck every last dime they can out of their employees, erm I mean "resources". I think I read a story about Walmart getting busted doing this but I can't be sure.

Walmart takes out this kind of insurance, I would bet that most National & Multinational corporations do this a lot.

~Tenth

It seems some people haven't lost their humanity yet:

Firms can no longer take out 'dead peasant' insurance on workers
May 11, 2005 from Seattle, WA

Companies statewide will no longer be allowed to secretly take out corporate life insurance policies on their rank-and-file employees under a law signed this week by Gov. Christine Gregoire.

Widow is taking on Wal-Mart: Company had insurance policy on husband's life
December 7, 2002 from the Concord Monitor

Three years ago, Michael Rice, a 48-year-old assistant manager at the Tilton Wal-Mart, helped a customer bring a large television out to her car. On his way back to the store, he suffered a massive heart attack and collapsed. Seven days later, Rice died. Wal-Mart collected at least $325,000 from a life insurance policy the company had taken out on him. His wife and two sons never saw a dime. Now Rice's wife, Vicki, is suing Wal-Mart.

I wasn't able to find more from the second link without registering for the archives but I'm sure there's tons more out there.

wow, for as old as this practice is (80's), i'm surprised it's news to anyone here.

here are some interesting details about the practice for those who aren't familiar

deadpeasantinsurance.com...
It is often difficult for a person to learn whether he or she was covered by a “Dead Peasant” policy.
- snip -
Because a company’s purchase of insurance policies is not a public record, it is virtually impossible to know every company that invested in policies on employees’ lives.
- snip -
Prior to 2006, however, there was no federal law that required employers to disclose the policies to insured employees.

Wal-Mart & WinnDixie (a local grocery) have been to court over just this issue.

funny thing about State laws enacted since is the confidentiality surrounding these policies would make it difficult to prove the law was being broken.

and yes, the story about the private PA facilities and the payoffs and the thousands of children involved (not sure about the Myspace thing but it's likely).
many children were sent to these places for non-violent, behavioral issues and held extentedly.

sure hope things like this don't happen down under but i wouldn't be surprised if they did.