(WA) Firms can no longer take life insurance on workers

[Newsjock]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/223839_corporateinsurance12.html?dpfrom=thead

By CANDACE HECKMAN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

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.

Through a practice critics call "dead peasant insurance," many companies, particularly large ones, had bought life insurance policies on workers without telling them. The companies then collected the death benefits, often long after the employee had retired or left the company.

In the past, employees' families never knew about or received any of the benefits from corporate-owned policies. Lawmakers began questioning the ethics and legality of such practices after a highly publicized legal battle in Texas over Wal-Mart's corporate-owned policies.

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