These goodies range from the sublime-company-paid long-term-care insurance -to the, well, slightly ridiculous. In an unusually sweet farewell gift when he left Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc. nearly three years ago, Robert Holland Jr. collects free ice cream for life. The 59-year-old Holland, who quit the iconoclastic ice-cream maker after just 19 months and disagreements with its powerful founders, says the invitation to join its elite Ice Cream for Life Club "was a peace offering when I was leaving."

Many other companies are broadening their array of lifetime perks beyond the familiar health care and pension benefits in an effort to keep talented top management. For CEOs, "these lifetime entitlements continue the trappings of the office," says Carol Bowie, publications director of consultants ExecutiveCompensation Advisory Services in Springfield, Virginia. Departed chiefs "want to continue to be treated in the style to which they were accustomed to."

Probably the most welcome of the next-generation lifetime perk is company-paid long-term-care insurance, a benefit that a growing number of employees would give their eye-steeth to buy through the workplace. More executives in their 40s and 50s--many seeing their parents grappling with costly care-intensive health problems--are realising the importance of insuring for long-term-care needs.

Several employers are providing and paying the premiums for long-term-care coverage for senior executives while the execs remain in office. Most commonly, companies either buy a group plan or purchase individual policies for their execs.

In most instances, though, once they retire, the execs must pay the annual premiums themselves. (Under a typical long-term-care policy for, say, a 50-year-old executive, the annual $1,000 to $1,200 premium would provide $250,000 topay for various kinds of care).

A small yet growing number of companies are paying the lifetime tab, for which they can take a tax deduction. In 1996, directors of Raven Industries Inc., a Sioux Falls, South Dakota, maker of high-altitude research balloons, approved a benefit plan that will pay the lifetime premiums for long-term-care insurance of CEO David A. Christensen, 65 years old, and his wife. "We saw this as an emerging issue and an emerging benefit," says Gary Conradi, vice-president of corporate services.

Conradi, who is 60, will benefit, too, because all corporate officers who retire or meet certain age and service requirements will get the lifetime perk. (Other employees, however, don't qualify or even get the chance to buy their own coverage through the company.)

Another lucky executive is Vincent L. Salvatori, former chairman and CEO of QuesTech Inc., a Falls Church, Virginia, information technology concern acquired last November by CACI International of Arlington, Virginia. Under hisemployment agreement, his long-term-care insurance premiums of $2,711 are paid for life.

Among the other new lifetime perks: a company car and driver, access to aircraft and financial planning.

The former longtime leaders of Delta Airlines, Harcourt General Inc., and Chevron Corp., among others, get one or more ofthese perks. At the same time, report executive recruiters and pay specialists, a few retiring titans are boldly asking their boards for a fractional ownership of a private jet. Executive Jet Inc., a unit of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., sells a 1/16 interest in a Citation V Ultra for $417,000.

The new batch of lifetime benefits often are going to veteran standout CEOs like General Electric Co.'s Jack Welch and AlliedSignal Inc.'s Lawrence Bossidy. Welch, who plans to retire at the end of next year, received in December 1996 a post-retirement consulting accord from GE directors, a first for any GE chairman and CEO, that will allow him to work up to 30 days a year until he dies, advising managementor participating in various corporate activities and events. In return, GE will give him lifelong access "to company facilities and services comparable to those provided to him prior to his retirement, including access to company aircraft, cars, office, apartments, and financial-planning services."

The price tag isn't cheap: Last year alone, GE paid $68,799 for his financial-planning assistance. Along with up to $323,070 a year in consulting fees, Welch will collect an annual pension of about $6 million.At AlliedSignal, CEO Lawrence Bossidy, a former GE executive, wrangled nearly identical post-retirement perks six months after his ex-colleague did. "Sheer coincidence" maintains Tom Crane, a spokesman for the Morris Township, New Jersey, industrial conglomerate. After Bossidy retires at age 65 next April, he "is entitled to receive during his lifetime company facilities and services comparable to those provided prior to his retirement," AlliedSignal's latest proxy statement says. That includes a car, anoffice, financial planning and "limited use of a plane," Crane says.Such lifetime munificence bothers some long-retired chief executives. "It's just wild," complains Walter Wriston, who stepped down as Citicorp chairman and CEO in 1984. "If they were retiring as paupers rather than having $500 million in the bank, it would be another kettle of fish." The 79-year-old banker, now a professional director, still uses a Park Avenue office and secretary that Citicorp will underwrite for life.

"That's the total extent. No cars, no planes, no meals," he says, adding wistfully, "If you can get me the airplane and the limo, let me know."

--The Asian Wall Street Journal