by JW Mica
(unfinished draft)
Chapter One:
LIFE PROFIT OR LOSS
Leonard or Len as most called him started off life as
gifted! During his early days in
elementary school while most of the other kids were playing dodge ball, Len was
thinking about what college he was going to attend. It was not long before his parents, actually
his mother, as his father had moved on with his life shortly after Len was
born, could see Len was not the same as the other kids. As a matter of fact, once the teachers
realized just how smart Len was he was moved from the second grade to high
school! By the time Len was a junior in
high school, and only ten years old, he had started taking home study classes
to learn different languages. Since Len
kept to himself, and did not like the ridicule, from the other high school kids
about his age, he did not want them to know about his home studies. Len also decided to let his age catch up a
bit with his grade level, in hopes this would reduce the spot light he found
himself living under. With that Leonard
also took home study classes in law and accounting as well as the fact that he
could now speak seven different languages fluently. By the time Len was eighteen years old and
finishing his fourth year at Washington University, he bumped into an Army
recruiter on campus. At that time the
college students were protesting just having recruiters on campus, so Len, who
never followed the pact, decided to talk with him. Lieutenant Angelo Potash was the recruiter’s
name, and Len took to him like a baby duck, just born, and following the first
thing it sees. Lieutenant Angelo did ask
Len a lot of questions about his education and did ask why at such an early age
he was already graduating from college?
Len played that very low key, as by this time, Len was an Attorney, CPA,
RN and had a PHD in music, art, and botany and could now speak ten different
languages fluently. However, on the
outside, Len looked normal, if normal could ever be defined, as he just tried
to blend in. Once you engaged Len in a
conversation you quickly realized he was more than he appeared to be.
Leonard who was also an active member of the NRA could
handle and shoot just about any gun on the legal market! Once Len had spent some time with the army
recruiter, lieutenant Potash, he was ready to serve his country. Len wanted to see combat and with all the
wars the United States was involved in, this should not be a problem. It was difficult to keep his education and
abilities hidden, but he did, and after boot camp, where he led the pack, he
went right to the front lines. About two
days into the campaign, somewhere in Asia, Len killed his first person, a
solider with the enemy’s army! While the
first kill should have been hard on person fresh from boot camp, Len was
surprised at how well he had handled it.
For the next year, Len did see a lot of combat and actually lost track
of how many enemy fighters he had killed.
On one occasion Len was involved in taking a town that was a strong hold
for the enemy, only to find out that he had killed some civilians, both women
and children. While this was very hard
on him for a brief time, he got over it and it never bothered him again. By now he felt he was done with his combat
training, as he referred to it, and started sharing some of his other skills
with his superior officers. It was not
long before Len was moved from the battle field to army headquarters. During his final time with the army, Len
assisted in all translations with the enemy, and became very well know all the
way up the ranks. As Len did not really
like all the attention, he left the army when his time was up. Now with really nothing else left to learn,
he felt he should get a job where he could use all his skills without being
noticed. Len applied at Golden Sky
insurance company as an auditor, and was hired during the first interview. Golden Sky Insurance Company was not one of
the giants in the industry, but it was a good place for him to break into that
line of work. After about one year
working with the Home Office staff and the investment team, the company started
showing a profit. As this was taking
place, upper management was starting to take notice of Len, and he was promoted
to Senior Audit Manager. In this position,
Len had just about full control of the company’s money management, and it was
not long before he was promoted to the position of Chief Financial Officer,
CFO! Then, just as the company was
showing substantial growth, the National and even Global economy was heading
down the proverbial toilet. Golden Sky
Insurance was tanking, but with Len at the position of CFO, he was able to keep
it afloat. Len, as the CFO did meet a
lot of other CFO’s of other Insurance Companies, and always was able to learn
something, or some technique from them.
He found that the insurance companies that were not only holding their
own, but showing growth in this down market had some interesting programs on
their books. These of course were not
your normal investments but something that some people might feel is just plain
wrong. However, since Len had by now
developed a very thick skin, he did not really care what the general public
said or felt, and was open to anything that could improve the company’s bottom
line. The one thing that Len had a
passion for was leaving a place better than he found it. With Golden Sky Insurance, Len was going to
turn things around, and he did.
Several of the Insurance Companies that Len had
developed a good relationship with, actually showed him how they were able to
stay ahead of the curve. These companies
had taken out large life insurance policies on many of their key employees, as
well as some of the newer ones. The
insurance company as with any company can do this and be the only beneficiary,
and not even have to notify the employee or their family. Also the company could keep the policy active
if the employee left their employment, as long as the company paid the
premium. Len also learned that this
approach changed the hiring practices in that before this a company might not hire someone that was sick
or had some visible health problems, but now they would hire that same
person. Reason was that the company
could take out a life insurance policy on them without them having to even take
a physical. Larger companies, to keep
track of all these life policies that they had, incorporated this into its own
department, and it was now part of their Profit and Loss statements. Most companies gave this department a name
that would not make it sound as ruthless as it really was. Just think, a young man, just out of college,
with a wife and possibly one baby, dies.
The company had taken out a one million dollar life policy and the
company and not the widow collected all the money. The widow never found out about the policy,
and because she could not afford life insurance, lost her home and everything
she had. Since Len was now a bit jaded
on life, he did not see the loss the widow had to endure, but instead how the
company’s profits had just increased by one million dollars! With that Len
brought the idea before the Board of Directors at Golden Sky Insurance, and
because of Len’s abilities to sell his ideas, and the fact the company was on
the verge of bankruptcy without Len, they all agreed to set up a new
department. Soon after that Golden Sky
had purchased about two dozen million dollar policies on some of their
employees. The first pay off came about
two months later, when one of these employees with the company death benefit,
died in a car accident. One million
unearned dollars, the best to get, pure profit less the cost of the policy, was
infused into the company’s profit and loss statement. With that the company took out an additional
two dozen policies, and now this project was under the complete control of Len! The next pay off came about two months later
when a company employee died of a heart attack.
This one was interesting in that the employee under normal circumstances
would not have passed the company’s physical exam, which was bypassed, and the
person was hired. Another one million
added to the profit and loss statement.
It was now clear that this type of investment in death could really help
the company, but Len was not happy with how long it took to make the next
collection. The third death came about
one month later and another one million was added to the books. At the end of the first quarter the death
department at Golden Sky Insurance Company was showing a large profit, which
added to the company’s bottom line as well.
Again, however, Len was not satisfied with the time between deaths even
though there were now more the fifty employees carrying the million dollar life
insurance policy.
Toward the end of the second quarter, Len started
reviewing many of employees that had the million dollar policy and found that a
few were actually in the hospital for various reasons. Since Len was also a Registered Nurse, and
about the brightest on the block, it was not hard for Len to enter the hospital
where the employee was at, to check the medical records. In his mind, he just wanted to see if this
employee was going to recover, or possibly die.
With the first patient, the employee was scheduled to leave the next day
and was fine. However, the next employee
Len came across was not doing well and it appeared the Doctors did not have
long to live. Len of course, very sharp,
was able to access all the medical records to see if he could tell when the
employee might die. From all
indications, if this employee stayed in the hospital and on the current
medication, could survive for another three or four weeks. With that Len made the decision to speed up
the cycle a bit, and injected some medication into the employee’s intravenous
bag, medication that could not be detected, and would bring on death within a
few hours. Len had rationalized, or
maybe not, that since this employee was going to die soon, there was no harm in
speeding it up before the end of second quarter. This employee died that evening, and another
one million was added to the company’s profit and loss statement, making the
second quarter much higher than was expected.
With that and during the next two years, Len continued with this same
approach to help boost the company profits.
However, by this time, it seemed as if there were not many of the
employees with this policy hanging over their head, in the hospital, so the
death toll was dropping fast. Len was
thinking of moving on to another company, but wanted to be sure Golden Sky
Insurance was doing the best it had ever done financially before he left. The next thing that Len started doing was
checking into the background of the employees with the million dollar policies,
to see if there was any criminal activity or seeded past. The first one that fit this profile was a
middle aged man who had an arrest record for DUI and spousal abuse. Again, the company overlooked this so they
could get him on the Death Row policy as Len now referred to it. After careful planning and observation, Len
was able put this employee down, so to speak, as might happen to a rabid
dog. This employee was at a bar,
drinking heavy and started a fight with another patron. Both went outside where, with the help of
Len, the other patron was able to kill the employee. The patron got off for self defense and
noting their inebriated condition, no charges were filed. Another million dollars added to Golden Sky
Insurance profits. This continued until
Len felt it might start to look obvious that many of their employees were
meeting with an untimely death, so he decided to leave the company. By the time he left, there were another five
deaths, one suicide, one car getting hit by a train when the car got stuck on
the train tracks, one by a stray bullet while the employee was out hunting, one
by drowning while out at night fishing and one by falling off a scenic cliff
while on vacation. Five million extra
dollars for the company, and Len was gone!
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