Insurance companies are rough places to work for.

[Kath2]

I had just graduated law school and passed the bar exam and needed a job ASAP. Accepted a position at a major insurer handling litigation with injury cases. It was an extremely stressful job with a lot of long hours and sleepless nights. But I was able to manage it and enjoyed my co-workers. I spent 30 years doing that. The first 20 were not awful and the last 2 were not too bad. But the 8 years in between were absolute shit for me. 60 hours a week at a minimum. "Non-optional overtime" it was called. Phone rang off the hook constantly. I was called a bitch and a cunt more times than I can even remember. As I neared retirement, the micromanagement was insane with every keystroke inspected. They didn't want to put out that 30% of your income which would be your pension. I knew a lot of very good people that got fired after 28 or 29 years. They had no problem fucking over very loyal and good employees to avoid paying pension. For such a conservative company, they never alcohol or drug tested anyone because they have would have had to fire everyone.


This is not a "whoa is me me" story. I am very happy with my life and I had many great experiences working there. This is just a warning that insurance companies are absolutely ruthless when it comes to their employees. Know that going in.

[FBaggins]

1. It took thirty years to vest in the pension?

28 years gets nothing?

[Kath2]

3. 28 years got something like 10%

You had to be over 60 and have 30 years for full pension, which is still not enough to live on.

[Kath2]

5. My GF's mom made $150 a year for the Feds.

I think she gets about 90% of that for life. And at age 63 I work at Safeway part time and as a full time 40 hours groundskeeper. Go figure.

[DENVERPOPS]

9. Sears

used to do the exact same thing for decades.......

[brooklynite]

2. You worked for one insurance company...

...what is the evidence that your experience applies to companies you didn't work for?

[Kath2]

4. Well, I worked very closely with a lot of other insurance adjusters.

There are multi-car accidents with 10 or more insurances companies involved. And I knew all those other adjusters well. And they were dealing with the same or very similar things.

[live love laugh]

6. Not to pounce but I could say the same conditions exist in many companies / industries.

It sucks but I don’t think it’s confined to the insurance industry.

[TexasTowelie]

22. IT is worse.

See my post below and you'll understand my comment.

[SharonAnn]

32. Working for an IT vendor, I hated working with insurance companies

Just hated it.

[Enter stage left]

7. All of the responses to Kath 2 are missing the point...

Nobody...NOBODY...NOBODY NOBODY Should have to work for 20+ years and fear for their benefits.

NOBODY

That is the biggest problem in our "United States of America". It should read the "United States of the Fucking RICH"

Insurance company's are the very worst of the "takers" in this country, right next to the lawyers and judges that uphold their draconian decisions

[Hoyt]

8. It's quite unusual, honestly. Usually, there is some level of vesting after a few years.

And, you vest in your own contributions immediately.

I’ve worked with insurance company employees. They do work lots of hours in many cases, just like most salaried or self-employed people. They got fired sometimes. But the pay was usually better than average and benefits were good. Most wished they could get their old job back, until they got hired elsewhere.

I’d agree if people lost everything after a decade or two of work. But that’s rare nowadays. If it occurs, it should be a serious crime.

[spooky3]

11. ERISA and subsequent amendments required vesting in large private companies' plan assets

after a few years. (Details are easy to find on the internet.)

If the insurance company that OP is describing had a defined benefit plan, then it is possible that people fired after 28 years would have reduced benefits compared to people who could stay there for 40 years. And the company could be doing it to keep them from getting their maximum. But there is no way that they would receive zero or anything close to it.

I used to work in that field.

[Hoyt]

15. Thanks. Wasn't sure of today's laws, but zero, or even a 20% or so,

didn’t sound right.

[Enter stage left]

21. I thank the last two responses to my post...

but the situation remains the same...it is blackmail!

If you don't commit to indentured servitude for XX number of years, we will take away "some" of your benefits.

The CEO's, CFO's COO's are making thousands or tens of thousands of times the amount of what the people who are busting their asses (to make those assholes rich) are making, so THEY CAN BE PAID THOSE OBSCENE AMOUNTS.

And those "slaves" are people busting their asses because they are terrified of being fired and having to look for a new job. I hired some of them. I had to counsel some of them. And the rich got richer!

It's long past time for the poor to get richer.

[Bettie]

14. Defined Benefit pensions don't really exist anymore

you can find a few, but they are rare and often confined only to people who are currently near retirement.

Most businesses have you fund your own "retirement" with a 401k which won't make enough for anyone to retire unless they make enough to make ends meet and contribute a large amount.

[Joinfortmill]

16. 👍

[Skittles]

18. ?

my "pension" was frozen fourteen years ago

[DENVERPOPS]

10. this says nothing about

how ruthless the insurance company & their attorneys handled the people/damages on the claim.......

[Joinfortmill]

12. Yup, so are financial firms. Worked for both.

One well known company almost killed me with the stress, contracted Legionnaires Disease. But I made it to retirement with the help of a couple of very nice folks who voluntarily mentored me.

[lastlib]

31. The bank I formerly worked for was pretty ruthless about pushing older employees out the door....

myself being among them.

[former9thward]

13. Not to cast doubt on your story but the pension part is simply against the law.

And a lawyer should know that. Since 1970 companies have operated under the ERISA law which protects pensions. You can't lose your pension after 28 years or just get 10%. ERISA provides vesting of pensions after five years. There are two forms:

Cliff vesting. This typically means that if you leave the job in five years or less, you lose all pension benefits. But if you leave after five years, you get 100% of your promised benefits.

Graded vesting. With this kind of vesting, at a minimum you're entitled to 20% of your benefit if you leave after three years. In each subsequent year, another 20% of your benefit vests. So if you stay for four years, you are vested in 40% of your benefit and so on; by the end of year seven, you are 100% vested in the plan, so you can leave the job knowing that you will get 100% of the pension benefits earned.

[Hoyt]

17. Thank you. I thought there were protections.

[Dave says]

33. Does that apply to defined benefit pensions?

I thought that was only for defined contribution plans.

[former9thward]

35. Defined benefit.

I know because I get one. I used to work for a steel company and when they went bankrupt they turned their pension plan over to the PBGC which is the federal agency created by the ERISA law. So I get a pension payment every month from them.

[hurple]

19. Sounds like

You were working someone who just pretends to be a good neighbor...

[Kath2]

26. That is correct.

[hurple]

28. In that case..

If I understand correctly, I was another of those loyal, hard-working employees who got cut after 21 years.

But, that actually turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. I now work for the state, in a job better suited to me, for better pay, with better benefits and with better people.

I did not realize how toxic that place was until I got out. But it did take a period of detox and deprogramming.

[Kath2]

29. Sorry for the late reply.

But you figured that out perfectly.That was a totally toxic environment. I had one close friend who worked there who I know died from the stress and another who committed suicide. We were working in Maryland when they decided to handle all claims from Texas, Arizona and Georgia. I had nearly 30 years in and they tried their best to get me fired. They wanted to get rid of all the loyal employees because they didn't want to pay pensions. I am in a better place now, also. The co-workers were excellent but that company is horrible to work for.

[TexasTowelie]

20. The insurance company that I worked for was a decent employer.

I was compensated well, felt valued as an employee, had a great relationship with the woman that was my manager and the woman
that was the next manager up the chain, and I also made significant contributions (as in tens of millions of dollars) that affected the bottom line. With the exception of reporting deadlines that occurred during the spring, most of the time I worked about 50 hours a week.

When the insurance company decided to voluntarily liquidate is when the trouble began. I was laterally transferred into the affiliated IT company within the financial group since statistics were required to be reported for the following six years. The manager two levels up left the company, the person that was in an equivalent position left on disability because the new manager made him empty the file cabinets into banker boxes even though he had cerebral palsy and walked with a limp, the manager one level up had a stroke and never returned back to work, and the VP of the company had a stroke a couple years later and her skull was open for the following six months.

My new manager also resented men and made comments that could have easily gotten the company sued. Then we started taking contracts for other companies outside our insurance companies. All of those contracts were underbid so it placed the burden on the employees to work extra hours and there was a stretch where I was averaging at 75 hours a week over a three month period. There were some occasions that I had to work overnight and stay the next day so I was putting in 32 hour workdays. During the six following years I absorbed the work of five employees in the claims department, my colleague, my supervisor that had the stroke, the woman that submitted aggregate workers comp data, two employees in the licensing department, and two other employees in the statistical department. I was also the liaison to the licensing, underwriting, claims, and actuarial departments. I was even the employee that the Help Desk consulted with since I was the Microsoft Access guru in the company. Essentially I was involved in every aspect of the company from licensing and underwriting to the back end with claims and reinsurance.

I hope that karma visited my immediate supervisor at some point because she deserved it not only for how she treated me, but how she treated a lot of my colleagues. She was the worst supervisor I ever had.

[Grins]

23. "...(ruthless) when it comes to their employees"?

And worse with their policy holders whom they constantly cheat.

[Backseat Driver]

24. I worked at a medico-legal malpractice insurance company

as a young executive secretary for the VP of Claims. Damn, I loved that job, and learned a lot about re-insurance as I tracked the progress of the cases and was assigned to host some re-insurance auditors from across the pond. I recall that the medico-legal nurses down the hall were so highly educated and smart, smart, smart; an inspiration, really--some with both RN and JD degrees. I attended the President's awesome hotel ballroom holiday retirement party, and left town within the week with much heartache that I had to go after barely a half year of employment! I'd guess it may even have been my ultimate dream job, but, wouldn't you know it, we had just 30 days to move just before Christmas for DH's New Year start date, so I did give it up for new experiences in another city. But that's another story in which nothing was ever the same; and not really in a good way!

About a year or so later, I learned the new President (and several other officers) had been indicted for embezzlement of so much money that the insurance company had to be dissolved. What a shocking tale it was! All the company's employees gone, and only the associated law firm survived.

[ProfessorGAC]

25. I Know Several Actuaries

At various big insurance companies.
Their experience is quite different than what you describe.
Perhaps it has something to do with working in legal, but none of my contacts work(ed) 60 hour weeks, (well 2 are now retired) and I've known these folks for 20-25 years.
Maybe sales, marketing & legal are very different.

[Hortensis]

27. That happened in a lot of companies in the era of downsizing

that began with the shift of America to conservatism and "reaganism" in the 1980s and 1990s. It became common for fewer employees to be kept on and required to do what significantly more had once done.

Those so fortunate as to be "allowed" to keep their jobs typically did it because they had pensions at stake and/or couldn't get work elsewhere. One of our closer friends went through this was a claims processor for a health insurer, and I still remember how tired she was every time we saw them back then.

On the plus side, she and her husband, also with a steady working class background, are quite handsomely and enjoyably retired on his-and-hers pensions they owe to both the job benefits established during the New Deal era that ended by 1980 and of course their own years of steady 9-5.

[Kath2]

30. Yes.

I hung on to the bitter end to get the pension, small as it is. I don't think many companies have pension agreements anymore.

[RobinA]

36. Nope

I'm hanging on to a job I despise to maximize the pension. I was trying to make it to 70, but I will go at my SS retire age of 66.8 yrs. Both pension and SS would increase significantly if I could make it until 70, but there's just no way. I might be able to hold off on SS for awhile, but that remains to be seen. I will work after I retire, but I will have to like the job.

[Xolodno]

34. I've worked in Operations, Actuarial, Product Management, Distribution/Sales and now...

...Product Development. Haven't done Claims, Underwriting or Legal.

But in all my roles, think I saw two maybe three re-orgs, with the exception of Distribution/Sales. I lost count. Yes, there have been times I have to work 12-14 hour days, flipside, there were days I was just keeping an eye on my email and nothing more, so it balanced out.

We had a pension and I'm vested into it, but its now frozen. Instead of contributing to it, they now put the same percentage into your 401k. Plus they have a 6% match.

Think a lot of it depends on the company you work for. Some companies fight tooth and nail on every claim as its their operating model. Others find it cheaper to settle and move on, but keep a database on repeat offenders.

Wondering if the bad years can be attributed to a "bad apple" of a leader. It happens from time to time, I was in the highest rated morale department, this dumbass shows up and in no time we were int the lowest.