Laid Off from Work? Negotiate a Severance Package!

Being laid off is one of the most life altering events in a person's life. For individual families, especially single parent homes, the move from being employed to being unemployed can, quickly, become the difference between shelter and being homeless. As a productive employee, dedicating loyalty to a company, now experiencing a lay off, there are often emotional issues which couple the financial toll the lay off brings.

To avert financial toll, when subject to a corporate lay-off or downsizing, there are steps an employee can take to negotiate items within a severance package. Beyond money, many employees are unsure as to what additional benefits can, and should be, provided by their American employers.

One of the first items that should be negotiated as part of a severance package involves the continuation of insurance benefits which are considered crucial to protecting the family from further financial demise. Such insurance coverage, which should be considered, will include not only health insurance but also short term and long term disability and even life insurance. With many employers opting to process downsizing and severance packages in the form of a lump sum payment to the employee, some employees are negotiating the severance to include continued and regular paychecks, with continued benefits, in lieu of lump sump payment. While COBRA laws protect the rights of employees to continue insurance benefits after a lay-off, it is the negotiation of these benefit, to include continued employer premium contribution payments, which is crucial to the outcome of the severance package.