The COLI market is making a comeback

Company-owned life insurance, or COLI, is enjoying renewed popularity in helping companies recruit highly skilled talent, reward high performing employees and retain key executives. Fundamentally, the concept is the same as when COLI was introduced over 50 years ago, but new factors, including innovative products and economic changes, are creating new opportunities for the benefits of COLI.

With COLI, a company typically purchases and owns a permanent life insurance policy on an executive or key employee under an agreement to provide the employee or employee’s family some future benefit, informally funded by either the policy’s cash value or death benefit. COLI can be used to fund a variety of arrangements between employers and employees, but the three most common are:

1. 1. Executive benefits — With executive benefits, the company makes a promise to provide future benefits and purchases a life insurance policy to fund the benefits. Assuming the executive is alive when the benefit payment is due, the company can access the life insurance policy’s cash value to recoup the after-tax cost of the benefit or recover those benefit costs, as well as the company’s premiums, through the policy’s death benefit. If the executive dies prematurely, depending on the terms of the agreement, the company may use the death benefit, or a portion of it, to pay the benefit to the executive’s beneficiaries.
   2. Unexpected loss of a key employee — Life insurance also provides companies a flexible option to protect themselves from the costs associated with losing a key employee, including recruiting and training a replacement and potentially restoring lost profits.
   3. Buy/sell agreement — Small businesses with multiple owners may face a dilemma if one owner dies and there is no buy/sell agreement in place for the orderly transfer of that owner’s share. Life insurance provides a cost-effective option for the company to use the proceeds to buyout a deceased owner’s share.

A brief history of COLI

While the COLI market has existed for more than 50 years, it has not always thrived. Through the 1980s and 1990s, the COLI market surged thanks to tax and accounting advantages and general economic strength, as well as the emergence of private placement variable life insurance products. COLI cases were large and plentiful. In the 2000s, the COLI business fell out of favor on the heels of tax changes, volatile markets and recessions. In addition, higher unemployment led to companies finding it easier to recruit and retain top talent.

This decade, the COLI market is once again gaining strength. The economy has improved, specialized industries are doing well and companies, such as technology firms and financial institutions, are once again competing for highly compensated executives. In addition, a variety of other factors are coming into play, making COLI a compelling option.

Evolving industries

Some specialized industries are evolving and challenging companies to retain key talent. This phenomenon can particularly be seen in the medical and automotive industries, which are both becoming more “corporate-ized.”

Health care changes have pushed self-employed doctors and small group medical practices into large health care networks. Similarly, large, national automobile dealership networks are consolidating dealerships across the country. As this occurs, the loss of key physicians and sales professionals, as well as medical and automotive technicians, can be damaging. Retention is key.