Cos. Offer Benefits to Survivors
By ADAM GELLER
AP Business Writer
NEW YORK - One company is pledging health care coverage through 2006 for families of employees killed in the attack on the World Trade Center. Another firm is promising each victim's family at least $100,000, taken from profits usually paid to senior partners.
In recent days, those firms and others whose ranks were decimated in the terrorist attack, have been piecing together benefit packages to help ease the financial burden on surviving spouses and children.
Many of the plans include some continuation of pay and insurance coverage, as well as assurances that nonprofit foundations set up by the companies will be there to offer more help.
But the extent of those relief efforts vary widely, with some firms drawing decidedly narrower limitations on continued pay and benefits.
Uncertainty about everything from tax implications to locating records lost in the attack have made the job more complex, executives at some of the companies said.
"It's been not only a difficult time, but a complicated time," said William Pitt, a spokesman for the Marsh & McLennan Cos., which lost 292 of 1,700 employees based in the World Trade Center.
Some firms would not discuss details of benefits packages for survivors, citing not just the need for privacy, but also the heated public criticism leveled at one firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, by some survivors angered at its handling of payouts.
"We see a lot of very public stuff between some companies and survivors and not all of it has been very pretty," said Jim Connelly, executive vice president at Fred Alger Management Inc., which lost 35 employees in the attacks. "There's no question we take it (assisting families) very seriously, but we want to keep it very private between the families and the firm."
Companies willing to disclose specifics describe varying benefits packages.
Nearly all the companies have offered families an extension of victims' salaries beyond Sept. 11. Companies including Marsh and Sandler O'Neill & Partners, which lost 66 of 170 employees at the center, say they are paying those salaries through the end of this year, but as a lump sum.
Aon Corp., about 200 of whose employees are confirmed dead or missing, say they will continue salaries through most of this month.
With pay on Wall Street often reliant largely on year-end bonuses, some companies say they also intend to make those payments to families. Cantor, criticized for its slowness in making such payments, says it will send out checks matching last year's bonuses to families of administrative workers by Oct. 22. Families of employees working on commission should expect those checks by Nov. 22, the company said.
Sandler also plans to pay bonuses, but is sorting through specifics with an eye on how to ease tax burdens on families, said Fred Price, the company's chief operating officer.
Many of the companies also are pledging to cover health care insurance costs for families of lost workers.
Cantor says it will donate 25 percent of its profits over the next five years, money that would've gone to partners, to support families of the more than 700 workers killed. That money will be used first to pay for 10 years of health care coverage, with the balance distributed until every family has received at least $100,000.
Sandler says it has already arranged health care coverage for the families through December 2006. Marsh says it will cover insurance costs for the next year.
Most of the firms who lost large number of workers also have set up foundations to accept donations on behalf of victims' families, and some have made that a focus on their benefits efforts.
Aon, for example, has bolstered its memorial fund with a corporate donation of $10 million, earmarked to pay for the education of surviving children.
In addition, several companies have matched families with financial advisers or personnel managers to sort through money worries or benefit questions.
Executives at some of the companies said there was little question they would provide benefits, despite the financial obligations they entail.
"I guess it was an expression of our own faith in ourselves, that we're going to get this done," Sandler O'Neill's Price said.
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