Life insurance is not exclusive. You can take out a policy on yourself, and your employer can take one out on you, and you can buy one through your employer, all at the same time. In fact, Wal-Mart has been accused of surreptitiously taking out life insurance policies on its own employees without their knowledge. This allows them to claim and get a death benefit on some of their older, senior citizen employees. Clearly in that case, Wal-Mart being a policyholder had no impact on the employees having their own policies at the same time.
In this instance, Google is providing an additional benefit to its employees (benefits go to them) which doesn't preclude the employee from getting their own policy -- which they should, since they should never have a life insurance policy that is dependent on employment.
In fact, Google gets a good deal in doing so. When they insure their employees, they are doing so with a limited term (a 10 year payout instead of a one-time lump sum), and they are also getting the benefit of a group life insurance policy, which averages out the rates across the insureds rather than on a per-person basis, which would require each employee to endure a physical and a qualification check. Sounds like something other businesses might think of emulating.
I liken this more to a disability insurance benefit rather than something that is used to keep employees committed to the company.
The policies you mention at WalMart are called "dead peasant insurance". There were even investment funds that engaged in betting on the deaths of nearly random people that had little to no connection to those taking out insurance, but about which the investors had more information about their health and longevity than insurance adjusters. These were good investments because the money you put into it in many cases was tax deductible, but life insurance benefits paid out are completely tax free. So the thing in essence was a legal money laundering operation that converted possible taxable corporate profits into completely untaxed death benefits.
In this instance, Google is providing an additional benefit to its employees (benefits go to them) which doesn't preclude the employee from getting their own policy -- which they should, since they should never have a life insurance policy that is dependent on employment.
In fact, Google gets a good deal in doing so. When they insure their employees, they are doing so with a limited term (a 10 year payout instead of a one-time lump sum), and they are also getting the benefit of a group life insurance policy, which averages out the rates across the insureds rather than on a per-person basis, which would require each employee to endure a physical and a qualification check. Sounds like something other businesses might think of emulating.
I liken this more to a disability insurance benefit rather than something that is used to keep employees committed to the company.