Corporate giants routinely take out secret life insurance policies on their lowest-level employees so the company gets a massive payout when those workers die.

A closer look

Corporate giants routinely take out secret life insurance policies on their lowest-level employees so the company gets a massive payout when those workers die. Informally known as 'dead peasant insurance', this extremely dystopian corporate finance strategy allows giant retail chains and banks to profit handsomely from the untimely deaths of their own cashiers and janitors. It is beautifully cynical to realize your employer might mathematically value you more as a deceased insurance claim than as a living, breathing human being who actually contributes to their quarterly earnings reports