Any life insurance contract transferred from an employer or a tax-qualified
plan to an employee must be taxed at its full fair market value, according to
final regulations issued by the Treasury Department and the IRS.
Employee benefit costs rose to 42.3 percent of payroll costs in 2002, up from
39 percent in 2001, according to a survey by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Three years ago, before the recession officially began, 50.3 percent of women between the ages 55 to 64 were working full- or part-time. As of last month, the figure had risen to 54.1 percent. The Washington Post reports that it's not hard to see why.
Insurers and employers are quietly adopting new rules that make it harder for family members to collect on employee life insurance, writes Houston Chronicle columnist L.M. Sixel.
Almost one-third of Americans age 18 and over have no life insurance protection, according to the insurer MetLife, which commissioned a survey of U.S. households.
President Bush has signed a bill permanently extending federal death benefits to same-sex couples for the first time. The bill allows death benefits to be paid to the domestic partners of firefighters and police officers who die in the line of duty.
Life insurance associations as well as companies and agents across the country say the sale of policies and queries for information have jumped since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The Sept. 11 terrorism attacks changed the world, but they've left benefits administrators and the government wrestling with an old problem: Who legally constitutes immediate family?
