This is a complete misunderstanding of probability, payoff, and return on investment.

The value of a life insurance policy isn’t in its amortized yearly returns. This policy is not an investment. The policy allows you to pay a negligible amount of money to avoid a devastating situation — family pain and debt that might arise from your death.

Anybody who uses this article as justification to end their life insurance policy is so badly mistaken that it hurts.

Edit — the “buy it yourself” argument is stupid. It doesn’t solve the problem outlined in the article.

The first $50,000 of group term life insurance is not taxable, so the tax penalty here should be reduced by about 10% [1].

Second, either Google is getting shafted on their premiums (they may be) and over paying by more than 44% ($200/$450 from the article), or on average this is a net benefit to employees over the possibility of opting out. Consider employees with health problems that could never get term insurance on their own. The real story might just be that Google should find a better priced term life provider.

[1] https://www.irs.gov/government-entities/federal-state-local-...

The perk also includes: 10 years of salary to your spouse, and monies also for your children. Googlers typically aren't going to microptimize expenses this small.