(MONEY Magazine) – To find the companies with the most generous benefit packages in America, MONEY obtained nominations from more than a dozen workplace and benefits consultants, including Milton Moskowitz, author of The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America (Doubleday will publish a new edition next year). The specialists cited more than 40 well-known corporations. We narrowed the field to the 10 companies listed below by applying the following criteria: the companies had to offer employees high levels of insurance at little or no cost; give them some options, even in traditional plans; provide unusually liberal paid vacations and unpaid leaves; and offer a selection of special features, such as flextime and job sharing, that make working and child- rearing easier for parents. Several of our semifinalists dropped out of the competition rather than disclose details of their packages. We then turned over the 10 finalists to a consultant (who requested anonymity for competitive reasons). He ranked the 10 by using a computer model to assign numeric values to each component of the firms' plans, including some not shown below. The results are listed below. According to our tally, IBM offers the best benefits, followed by Eastman Kodak, Hewlett-Packard and so on. If your company measures up to these paragons in even a few areas, consider yourself lucky. If not, you may want to show this article to your boss. Our methodology tries to make comparisons as fair as possible. In cases where a corporation's offerings vary, we describe the dominant plan, in as much detail as space permits. Employers with flexible plans, in which employees assemble their own packages from an assortment of options, are indicated in footnotes. The entries under medical and dental coverage are for individual coverage only and reflect each plan's basic option or the one most often chosen by employees. In all categories, if no cost is given, the benefit is free. Leaves are unpaid; during them, other benefits are suspended unless otherwise noted. Annual amounts of defined-benefit pensions -- paid from company-funded plans -- are for employees who earn $50,000 in their final year. All defined-contribution plans, except Procter & Gamble's, are tax- deferred 401(k)s.

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