Google Life Insurance Benefits: Are They The Best Worldwide?

When it comes to life insurance, there are many different options.  For most people today, life insurance cover is unfortunately not one of the benefits provided by your average company, at least not for anyone under the executive level.

While some firms still offer cover, it’s the exception, not the rule.

For companies that do offer life insurance, coverage can range from almost nothing to some of the best you can get.

Google, the global Search and Advertising giant, is known for both its non-standard death benefit for employees and its exceptional quality.

The question is: Are Google’s Life Insurance benefits the best in the world, or is that all hype?

What is Google’s Life Insurance Policy?

Many years ago, Google made headlines by announcing a specific benefit for all its employees.  Here’s what they promoted.

If a Google employee passes away and has a spouse, the spouse will receive 50% of the employee’s salary as a monthly benefit for ten years.  

Additionally, if the employee had children, each child would receive £1,000 USD per month until they reach age 19, or, if they’re in full-time education (such as college or university), until they’re 23.

In addition, any outstanding stock options the employee holds would become fully vested immediately.

This benefit applies to any Google employee in the USA, no matter how long they have worked for the company. Even if they’re hired and pass away in a tragic auto accident mere weeks later, that benefit still pays out.  

This is known as a death-in-service benefit rather than a traditional life insurance policy, but it falls into a similar category, since it provides financial benefits to survivors after an individual’s death.

To draw up a couple of examples, here are some figures:

• If a Google employee earns £55,000 per year when they pass away and has a spouse with no children, that spouse will receive 50% of that amount, or £27,500 per year, for 10 years, totalling £275,000.
• A Google employee earning £55,000 with a spouse and one child, currently 10 years old, is a bit more complicated. Their spouse gets £27,500 per year, and their child also gets £1,000 per month (about £800 as of this writing) until they turn 19. That’s nine years of monthly payments, totalling up to £86,400. Adding that to their parents’ payments, the total is £361,400.

These are just a few examples.  A Google employee earning over £150,000 per year would leave behind a substantial sum, and the more children they have, the more it would add up over time.

Why Google Offers This Policy

From Google’s perspective, you have to wonder why they offer this kind of death-in-service benefit.

They lose an employee and pay the employee’s spouse the equivalent of five years’ salary, a significant expense.  

Moreover, they’re paying for it rather than a more traditional life insurance policy issued by a third-party insurance company managing its own funds.

Google offers it for one reason: employee loyalty.  Employees are encouraged to remain with the company, even in the face of a difficult role or a better offer from another company, because they know that if something awful happens to them, their spouse will be well cared for, at least for some time.

Any company fostering loyalty will look for ways to support the survivor of an employee who passes.  Sometimes it’s emotional support, sometimes financial support, sometimes social support, but Google decided to make it official and enduring, at least for ten years.

To put it in the words of Google themselves, when this was first hitting the news in 2012:

“One of the things we realised recently was that one of the harshest but most reliable facts of life is that at some point most of us will be confronted with the death of our partners, and it’s a horrible, difficult time no matter what, and every time we went through this as a company we tried to find ways to help the surviving spouse of the Googler who’d passed away.”

Google wants talented employees to stay and foster a positive reputation, even when something terrible happens to them. For a company worth literal billions, paying out a few hundred thousand in the event of an employee’s death is barely an expense against the bottom line.

Does Google Still Offer This Death Benefit?

All of the information about Google’s death benefits dates back to 2012. Do they still offer them?

It’s somewhat unclear.  Google doesn’t seem to feel the need to promote it.  

On Google’s official Careers page, in their list of benefits, “Survivor income benefit” is still listed, so it’s safe to assume something of the sort still functions, though the exact specifics may vary by now.

The Drawbacks to Google’s Life Insurance Policy

Unfortunately, Google’s life insurance policy has two primary drawbacks.

First, because it’s not life insurance, it’s more restrictive. It pays out to a spouse or a child, but what happens if the Google employee has neither?  

There’s no information on whether those benefits can be paid instead to a surviving parent, sibling, unmarried partner, or even a charitable foundation.  

With traditional life insurance, you can name virtually anyone as a beneficiary, as long as they can sign the paperwork.

The second major drawback, especially for those in the UK, is that the benefit seems explicitly intended for US-based Google employees.  

They announced that, at least, back in 2012. Similar benefits may exist for foreign offices, but they may not.

We don’t have specific inside information on this front, so if you do, feel free to let us know.

There are other potential drawbacks, too. For one thing, as an employee benefit, it stops applying if the employee leaves Google.

Whether they’re laid off, quit, or move on to a better-paying tech job at another FAANG or top-level firm, they leave that benefit behind.

That’s not unique to Google’s death benefits, though. Almost any company-offered life insurance will be cancelled after an employee leaves.  

However, with a standard life insurance policy, company-sponsored coverage often includes a grace period. You can roll it over into your policy and pay for it separately to keep it active.  

Since Google’s coverage isn’t standard life insurance, it can’t be rolled over in the same way.

Is Google’s Life Insurance Policy the Best in the World?

This is a difficult question to answer.

For one thing, while Google was upfront about promoting this policy back in 2012, things may have changed in the years since. It’s also likely that they haven’t, but inflation and the value of that payment don’t go as far as they used to.

Most other companies don’t advertise it the way Google did (if they offer any life insurance or death benefit at all).  

Even back then, Google wasn’t using it as a selling point. It came up in one significant interview and was widely circulated.

One truth is that 50% of salary over 10 years equals 100% of salary over 5 years, and 5x salary in a term life insurance policy is common among companies worldwide.

Google’s amortised framing over 10 years makes it a longer-term support option.  

However, because it’s not a single lump-sum payment, you can’t invest it as readily to generate ongoing interest income or stock market gains.

While ongoing, reliable support can be valuable, a lump-sum payment can offer better long-term flexibility.

The added benefit to children can be powerful.  £800 per month is a significant amount, and if a child is young enough, it can add up to a serious windfall by the time it stops.

On the other hand, if the Google employee’s children are already older than that, they don’t get anything, whether they’re in school or not.

Many of the largest companies offer non-standard benefits.  Smaller companies may offer a simple term life insurance policy, usually underwritten by one of the big insurance names.

Still, global brands do more innovative things with their benefits package.  

It may or may not work out better in the long run, but it’s hard to compare them accurately with so many obfuscating details in the way.

The truth is, Google is unlikely to be the best.  Taking out a £1,000,000 policy on an otherwise healthy young employee would be relatively inexpensive, and a Google employee would need to make £200,000 per year to equal it.  

While that’s certainly possible for some of their employees, most don’t reach that level.

Death-in-service benefits similar to Google’s benefits exist throughout the UK as well.  The NHS has them, for example, and they’re not uncommon in the private sector.  

The truth is, Google’s death benefits alone are not entirely that exceptional; it’s the total of all of Google’s benefits that put them near the top, and even then, it’s often in comparison to other American companies, rather than companies in the UK that have more statutory benefits for workers.

What Are Your Best Options for Life Insurance?

While getting life insurance or death-in-service benefits on par with, or better than, those offered by Google is entirely possible, you have three options.

• The first is to be employed by Google itself, and even then, possibly only if you’re in the USA, which might not be feasible or even a good idea for many of you reading this.
• The second is to find a domestic company that offers similar benefits.  You can only find out through negotiations with the company you’re looking to work for, though the larger they are, the more likely they are to offer them.
• The third is to purchase your own life insurance.  Many would argue that this is the better option.  After all, when you’re in charge of the policy, you can choose your provider, select the level of cover and terms you want, and decide between term, whole, and other kinds of life insurance.

To rival something like Google’s policy, you can get millions of pounds of cover by applying.  

As long as you’re relatively healthy and young, you should have no trouble finding such cover, and even if you’re older or less healthy, you can still find it.

The best way to find coverage is to fill out our quick survey here.  You can find it on that page or call us directly; our agents will be happy to help you get started.  

By filling out one form, we can secure you quotes from many of the UK’s best insurance providers,  From there, it’s just a matter of comparing the policies and picking the one that suits your needs the best.

You don’t need a high salary at Google to secure a future for your loved ones.  All you need is good life insurance coverage; it will keep them secure after you pass.  So why not get started today?