NOW on pbs last night

A should-really-see episode about what happens to company promised benefits after retirement..

http://www.pbs.org/now/science/healthbenefits.html

Should be a complete transcript in a couple of days.

Reader's Digest version: Basically, your benefits are cut due to a sentence in a document that you may not be allowed to see even if you ask for it.

Lifetime insurance is for the lifetime of the contract, not yours.

The company has put a cap on how much they will pay per year for retiree insurance. You pay anything over that cap. Company in question established a cap of $2700.

Once you retire, they no longer have reason to keep costs down, in fact, if the costs rise they can benefit from it. They can keep the cap amount that they established for our insurance, but there is an even bigger and better reason. Your insurance can be turned into a profit-maker for the company if they can raise the benefits high enough that you can't afford to pay them any more. As I understood it, it seems that your lifetime benefits are set aside and listed as a liability against the company profit line. If they can force you out, they can drop the liability and come out with a profit.

Also, if they can get someone to tell them that they're going to sue to get promised benefits, they can file first and go court shopping.