Conference 7.286::digital

BTW-

This plan covers two cases:

        - Traveling on Company Business

        - Acting in an official capacity as a member of a plant emergency
          organization

So it looks like if you are an official helping evacuate a plant and are killed
by chlorine gas (never happen, right?  (^;  ) your beneficiary would be entitled
to a benefit.

Lee

    I don't think that a written policy exists, but the guidelines that
    I generally follow are:
    
       If I leave my home and travel to a different DEC location or to a
       vendor site, I consider myself to be on 'company time'. This is a
       'convienience' to me, not to have to go to my office site and then
       go to my destination. If your manager/supervisor is aware that you
       are doing this, I wouldn't think there would be any problem with
       covering this.
    
    One of the ways to think of this, is in regard to mileage reimbursment.
    Irregardles of your departure point, you're mileage is determined from
    your normal work site. (Personally, I don't submit a voucher for
    distances that are smaller than the distance from home to my office.
    If its home-site-home and the distance is less than home-office, I
    don't submit any voucher. If its home-site-office, I submit a voucher
    for site-office only.) Your leaving from home is a convienience to
    both you and the company. You save wear and tear on your auto and the
    company benefits from more time on-site. If it didn't work that way,
    I would always leave and return to my office during an 8 hour period.
    That would mean 8-[round trip travel time] hours on-site, versus 8
    hours on-site. Oh yes, since you won't be able to answer this question
    yourself, make sure that someone else in your office knows that you
    were 'leaving home on company business'. If this is understood by
    others in your group, the travel insurance should cover unless their
    is a specific written notice to management disallowing this practice.
    You might wind up being the court case that resolves this, but what
    the heck!
    
    Bob Mc

I sent the example in .0 to personnel and this is the response that I
received:


                   I N T E R O F F I C E   M E M O R A N D U M

                                        Date:      16-Sep-1988 09:00 EDT
                                        From:      <name>
                                        Dept:      PERSONNEL
                                        Tel No:    

TO:  LEE ROTH @CSO                        ( ROTH.LEE )


Subject: RE: Clarification on Business Travel Accident Plan

Yes, in this example the insurance would pay.  If you travel from home 
to work site you don't count it as travel.  Any other time that you 
count travel you are on company time.

Hope this helps.

    I'v told my wife that if I Get Killed in my Company car that if
    any one askes where I was going , to tell them that I was headed
    to a customer site.

re: 616.4  -< Wife knows where I'm going >-

I remember a salesman who told us that he had instructed his wife that if
he should die at home, she should dress him up, put him in the company car,
and leave him slumped over the steering wheel with the car pulled over on a
road pointing to one of his major accounts. 

This was 10 years ago.  He's still alive.

Ray

    With regard to .0, the Plan A note 565.* and my note 589.3, I am
    confused! I've often wondered about the following regarding company
    insurance. 

    Since the following is the only question I find in Lee's .0 note: 

    >But what if my manager asks me to drive each day from Home to Customer?
    >If I am killed along the way will my beneficiary receive benefits under
    >the "Business Travel Accident Plan"? (this plan will pay out 5 times your
    >annual salary- minimum payment $100K, max payment $1M.)

    And the following is DEC's reply in .3: 

    >Yes, in this example the insurance would pay.  If you travel from home 
    >to work site you don't count it as travel.  Any other time that you 
    >count travel you are on company time.

    Quoting: "Yes, in this example the insurance would pay." Unless the
    second sentence negates the first, that says (officially from
    personnel) that if my manager asks me to go directly from home < to the
    customer / to a residency / to a sales call / to a sales support call /
    to hold the customer's hand / because he thinks I should say hello / to
    etc and so forth > that I am insured by DEC because I am on company
    business.  That seems to be what .4 and .5 think too. 

    I want to agree.  I work as a PSS specialist and I am asked to go
    directly to the customer every day.  No, the boss does not call me up
    every day and say go back there tomorrow, but if I did not, I would
    hear about it very quickly (he is a good manager).

    Lots of discussions in 565.* say something quite different, usually as
    a result of bringing the IRS into the discussion - because of the
    commuting question; i.e., you have to commute, nobody asked you to live
    so far away, etc, etc, etc. 

    Reduced to its lowest common denominator, I am asked by my boss,
    expected to, etc, etc, to go right to the customer from home. 

    The company requires it, period! 

    Is it not entirely obvious that under another scenerio the company
    could make arrangements to get me directly from the office to the
    customer in the morning and the reverse in the evening?  Should I
    consider giving up all current arrangements and do that just to cut out
    all the unrest, uncertainty, added accounting requirements, possible
    arguments with the IRS, and so forth.  Yes, and discussions along this
    line of reasoning could also loose me my job because of the loss of an
    hour a day revenue to the company at $100 or more per hour. 

    The company, in some form or other goes out of its way to make sure
    that I do go directly to the customer for very obvious reasons (yes,
    less and less - but there is still Plan B).  It has absolutely nothing
    to do with convenience to me!  That is only an artifact to the
    company's business requirements.  If the company wants me to share in
    the cost of supplying me with some sort of transportation to get the
    company's business done efficiently, because I am allowed to use that
    vehicle in the evening, on weekends, vacations, etc; fine, I agree and
    am willing to do so.  But not for business use!  When I am expected to
    do the company's bidding at any time during the day - that is business
    use. If the company will pay my family big bucks if I die in a car
    accident on the way to the customer (from home because it is expected
    and SOP), it is evidence enough for me that this is business. I do not
    think it makes any difference if it is at 8:00 AM on a regular trip or
    at 3:00 AM to fix something - or any other time of the day - or at any
    distance from home to customer!  Why doesn't the IRS agree? 

    Am I so blind in trying to argue my point that I mis-read what .3 says
    and I am all wet?  Come on, shoot me down, I've been putting this
    argument to my colleagues far too long, I'm getting tired.  I even
    argued for eight years that not listing the drive from home to the
    customer as business use was a classic example of field employees
    shooting themselves in the foot.  DEC didn't complain that I did it for
    eight years. I have all those EEV's stashed away at home. Amoung my
    colleagues, no one listened.  Well, "There goes another rubber tree
    plant!" 

    BTW, see my suggestion and discussions in note 613.* on the subject of
    a DEC Ombudsman. 

    Fred 
    

I may be cynical, but don't believe anything about insurance unless you get
it in writing from an officer of the insurance company.  And even if it's in
writing, don't believe it for longer than the current term of the policy.

/john

    That's not unjustified cynicism. It's realistic self protection!

    I agree with the last two, but regarding my -.3, I've often been
    accused of being a dreamer.  Speculation is so much fun.
    
    Fred

    Re: the last few
    
    I agree...insurance policies tend to favor the insurance company.(ie.
    they won't pay if a tricky situation comes up and said situation
    is not defined in writing by that insurance company.)
    Here's an example of a tricky situation:(I think the insurance company
    would contest it anyway)
    We have a customer located in  a building that's a 2 minute walk
    across our parking lot.
    I am sent there by my boss and am killed by a car while walking
    across the lot.
    Does my wife collect? Remember,I'm in no sort of vehicle.
    OK,you say,no problem,your wife collects.Here's another:
    You're sent on a call,you're hit by a car while walking to your
    DECmobile.(which is on DEC property,I might add) Are you covered?
    
    No matter how you meet your maker,it's not going to matter to you...but
    it sure will matter to your family...I think our insurer should
    spell out exactly under what circumstances they will pay.

re: < Note 616.10 by WINERY::BOUCHARKE "Ken Bouchard WRO3-2 521-3018" >
    
|    No matter how you meet your maker,it's not going to matter to you...but
|    it sure will matter to your family...I think our insurer should
|    spell out exactly under what circumstances they will pay.

I'd like to take it a step beyond, and have them spell out exactly under
what circumstances the WILL NOT pay.  And then pay all others...

But that would require them giving up their racket, and entering the
realm of legitimate businesses!  8^)

Bob_who_hates_insurance_companies_almost_as_much_as_lawyers_and_politicians!