If you allow multiple partner benefits, employees can make benefit rings with as few as two. Say you have 6 employees with a permitted two partnerships per person. (A) = BC (B) = DE (C) = FA (D) = EF (E) = AB (F) = CD Now everyone gets the maximum two beneficiaries, no one is out benefits, and the employer is paying double benefits to everyone. Or you could get something like this: (A) = BC (B) = AC (C) = AB (D) = EC (E) = FC (F) = DC Everyone is a beneficiary of at least one other person, and C gets 5x benefits.