Pros
There is a service termed Survivor Support Services that purportedly assists spouses in the event an employee passes away. They planted some trees in my husband's memory.
Cons
No, I was not an employee, but my husband was. The Survivor Support Services are a sham. They assist Liberty Mutual in wrapping things up on their end. Hope that you don't die while you are an employee at Liberty Mutual if you even somewhat like your spouse. Liberty Mutual is a very large company and contracts out for a lot of services. Survivor Support Services is the case. It sounds good in the beginning when you find out about these services, but things start unraveling after that. You are assigned a case worker. However, the standards are really low for their performance. My case worker informed me about all the entities that would be contacting me about different aspects of managing my husband's affairs. Fortunately, I wrote as much down as I could during our conversation. She told me she would send an email that summarized our conversation. I did not receive it and I contacted her about 2 weeks later to see what the status was. She did not get back to me. I eventually received that email one month after our conversation. More later. Because Liberty Mutual is a very large company and contracts with a lot of vendors, you are left to deal with multiple organizations, each with their own quirks. Some are more horrible than others. Case in point, I was informed that I would be receiving a W-9 for my husband's last paycheck. However, I have yet to receive it and have been chasing down how to get a W-9 and where to send it for about 4 months. No one knows anything about it and I am given random numbers to call and random numbers to fax the form or an email to send the form. Do you really think I'm going to send a form with my sensitive information to some unknown person or source? What is worse is that HR services, Talent Services, are only available 3 days a week and only from 11 AM - 3PM EST. Not all widows are retired. There is also a lot of administrative work that needs to be done for months by the surviving spouse. It is not always easy to fit calls into this window. I tried calling my 'case worker' for some assistance, but she did not return my call. I didn't even bother contacting her again based on her lackluster performance as a case worker. There are many other things, but I will give one more example. We were Liberty Mutual customers for multiple *decades*. My husband coincidentally got a job at Liberty Mutual. It was convenient having our insurance premiums deducted from his paychecks. Unfortunately, when someone dies there is nothing in the system that addresses this arrangement. I was not receiving any insurance bills and was becoming concerned, and I didn't want to lose my home and car insurance. There aren't any agents but there is a number to call. The agent I talked to was really very helpful and explained the system of payroll deductions. She saw that the button was still toggled to have premiums payroll deducted. She toggled it to having payroll deductions discontinued. She explained that I would be getting a large bill for the premiums in arrears. She helped me set up my payment system where I could pay a small amount one month to defray from the larger amount that would be billed in the subsequent month. Things did not go according to plan. I have e-billing and the initial bill went according to plan but the premiums in arrears came due and it was right away. The deadline had changed online, and I didn't have a paper statement indicating the payment due and the previous deadline for that payment. I still had not received my husband's death certificate that I needed to receive the life insurance payment. My father-in-law had given me some money to get through the period after my husband's death and I was fortunately in a position to pay that bill. Others may not be as fortunate. My husband liked working for Liberty Mutual and had hoped to retire there. He would be disgusted had he known about how I would be treated by his company after he was killed in an accident.
