I think it's pretty unlikely that Google is getting a bad deal on its group life insurance relative to the expected value of benefits. Yeah, younger people are

I think it's pretty unlikely that Google is getting a bad deal on its group life insurance relative to the expected value of benefits. Yeah, younger people are cross-subsidizing premiums for older coworkers - it's arguably a dumb standard, but it is a standard, and ultimately the impact isn't that significant. The bigger issue with employer-sponsored life insurance is that it leaves you vulnerable to losing your coverage right when you actually need it. Lots of fatal medical conditions make it impossible to work in your last months or years of life. And that's if you want to spend your last months or years of life at work, which many people understandably don't. In the best case, you can take your insurance with you when you lose or quit your job. You just have to remember to fill out the forms to port your policy out and pay the premiums within ~30 days, which sounds trivial but probably isn't exactly top-of-mind if you're dying. The insurer will be unsympathetic if it takes you 31 days instead of 30, of course. In worse cases, you might not be able to port out your policy at all if you have an immediately-life-threatening medical condition, or your premiums may be unaffordable, or there may be limits on how much you can convert. So yeah, I generally recommend that people ignore their employer-sponsored life insurance and buy their own if they need it. All of this also goes for long-term disability insurance.