Definition of "Group life insurance"

Basic employee benefit under which an employer buys a master policy and issues certificates to employees denoting participation in the plan. Group life is also available through unions and associations. It is usually issued as yearly renewable term insurance, although some plans provide permanent insurance. Employers may pay all the cost or share it with employees. Characteristics include:

  1. Group Underwriting an entire group of employees is underwritten, unlike individual life insurance where under only the individual is underwritten.
  2. Guaranteed Issue every employee must be accepted; an employee cannot be denied coverage because of a pre-existing illness, sickness, or injury.
  3. Conversion at Termination of Employment regardless of whether termination is because of severance, disability, or retirement, the employee has the automatic right to convert to an individual life policy without evidence of insurability or taking a physical examination. Conversion must be within 30 days of termination. The premium upon conversion is based on the employee's age at the time (ATTAINED AGE).
  4. DISABILITY BENEFIT available in many policies to an employee less than 60 years of age who can no longer work because of the disability. The benefit takes the form of waiver of premium, and the employee is covered for as long as the disability continues. The beneficiary will receive the death benefit even though the employee may not have been in the service of the employer for a long time.
  5. DEATH BENEFIT Structure or Schedule is usually based on an employee's earnings. The benefit is a multiple of the employee's earnings, normally 1 to 2 1/2 times the employee's yearly earnings.
In many companies, if the employee dies while on company business, 6 times the yearly earnings are paid as a death benefit. For example, a $50,000 a year employee dies in an accident while traveling on company time; the beneficiary would receive $300,000. But if the same employee dies in his sleep at home, the beneficiary would receive $100,000 (assuming that the normal death benefit is twice annual earnings).

image of a real estate dictionary page

Have a question or comment?

We're here to help.

*** Your email address will remain confidential.
 

 

Popular Insurance Terms

An act or violation that consists of two wrongs: tort negligent act or omission by one or more parties against the person or property or another party or parties, liability insurance is ...

Life is unpredictable so to compensate this, people have invented insurance. Insurance deals with unforeseen events. Sometimes insurance companies cover only a part of your losses and a few ...

Acquisition and employment of assets in order to maximize the return on these assets through: establishment of financial planning objectives; development of financial plans by which these ...

Policy that has an initial premium with flexible premiums thereafter. Within limits, a policy owner can select both the future amount and frequency of premiums, or can stop and start ...

The definition of special acceptance explains how two insurance institutions work together for the benefit of the masses. In order to define what special acceptance means, we must ...

Type of guaranteed insurance contract in which the term is fixed, the rate is fixed, and the contract owner does not participate in the insurance company's earnings. ...

Historical mortality table that replaced the annuity table, 1949, used for the calculation of annuity rates with more-current mortality experience at that time. This table was subsequently ...

Value in life insurance policies that entitle the insured to these choices: to relinquish the policy for its CASH SURRENDER VALUE. (Note that in the beginning years the cash value may be ...

Coverage tailored to the particular requirements of an insured, when a standard policy cannot be used to provide coverage for real or personal property. A manuscript policy is often written ...

Popular Insurance Questions