Life insurance continues for up to 12 months without employee contribution.

He said his system plans to begin increasing the employee contributions next year.

The benefit will be paid solely out of employee contributions.

The employee contribution to the system is 8% of the gross salary.

The employee contribution paid by members to the retirement system came to $101.8 million for fiscal 1989.

It matches employee contributions up to 6 percent of their salary.

"The $9,500 figure only applies to employee contributions," he said.

The company declined to provide an average amount of employee contributions, saying there were too many variations.

As mentioned above, the employee contribution was a flat rate stamp until 1975.

Employee contributions for family plans, in fact, rose to an average of $41 a month by early last year, from $27 in 1980.