Of course, it seems that companies have partly given up on the secrecy and are now informing their employees about the policy and obtaining their consent. It is no good if the process isn't entirely transparent and it seems it is not, because one can't really be sure that the sum declared by the company is real.

Even if the companies have legal backing and have declared that most of the benefits obtained from insurance policies will be used "to finance employee benefits" (Schultz and Francis, 2002), we are entitled to ask ourselves if this is truly so or whether the companies have discovered one of the numerous holes in the legislation that allow them to make profits unaccounted for and turn the law upside down so as to obtain profits that are not subject to taxation.

On the other hand, when discussing ethics here, we should consider the fact that life insurance policies on an employee may seem natural, given the money spent with the respective employee, training courses, etc., as well as money spent...

Regarded as an investment, it may seem less morbid than it actually is, but the ethical question still remains: do you really want the company to be the beneficiary of your death and this usually without your knowledge or consent?!
Bibliography

1. Schultz, Ellen; Francis, Theo. How Life Insurance Morphed Into a Corporate Finance Tool. Wall Street Journal, December 2002

2. Schultz, Ellen; Francis, Theo. Insurers Move to Protect 'Split-Dollar' Compensation. The Wall Street Journal. December 2002

First of all, I must emphasize the fact that the article that you have sent is only a small, plagiarized version of the initial Wall Street Journal article that I have read and used entirely and will mention it as such in my bibliography. Additionally, the title of the article is How Life Insurance Morphed Into a Corporate Finance Tool and not How Corporations Built Finance Tools Out of Life Insurance