Unless the policy is in effect after the employee leaves like a regular term life would be, then that is kind of creepy.
We have been doing it here for years, whether the employee wants us to do it or not he can’t stop us from doing it, it’s our businesses expense to replace him if he dies and the policy is dirt cheap.
The difference is that your company is probably small enough where losing an employee will affect the company. Wal-Mart is big enough that they are just playing statistical games. Let's say they figure 0.1% of the employees would die in a year. Insurance will then be 0.11% (or so) of the total insured value. If an average number of Wal-Mart employees die, Wal-Mart falls behind because of the insurance overhead - except that it looks like the insurance payout is tax-free. So the payout of 0.1% times the total insured value (tax free) is more than the premiums of 0.11% times the total value minus tax deductions because the insurance is a "legitimate" business expense.
From management perspective I would think notifying an employee of this would be good:
"You are so valuable to us that we have ...."
Everyone likes to feel important and to occasionally be reminded of this.
You mean the employee shouldn’t have a say in who you pass his/her SS# around to?
Would it bother to find out that one of your employees took out a life insurance policy on you, without your knowledge?