Photo by Sharon Harvell

Could it be that the long-awaited bluer skies are finally returning?  The stock market, holiday spending, and other economic indicators are up. Most welcome of all perhaps, according to the latest report, unemployment is down. 

If you are one of the lucky beneficiaries of this nascent uptick in hiring, congratulations!  Before you get too caught up in the day-to-day demands of full-time employment, check out my thoughts and others’ on how to make the most of your new job – financially speaking — in this article Newly Re-Employed Need To Revisit Financial Goals by CNBC’s Shelly Schwartz. 

In the not-too-distant past, this was hardly even an issue because 1) employer-sponsored life insurance could usually be converted to a policy you could take with you, and 2) employment gaps were typically few, far between, and relatively short.  Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that the latter is no longer true.  

But for the first time, at the Dynamic Networking Group meeting, I heard from a group member about an employer-sponsored policy that was not portable.   Theoretically, this was always possible, that such policies were out there;  I’d just never run across one.  Now I don’t mean to attach too much significance to one instance of this, or suggest that it’s a trend.  However, in thinking about the damage that could be done to a family’s security by overlooking this, I’m adding it to my checklist of items permanent employees will want to start paying more attention to in our new, pink slip-happy world, and I recommend you do the same.