Anyone know anything about life insurance policies?

[-Tandem-]

I'm having a hard time taking the final steps knowing that I wouldn't be able to leave a loved one with much afterward.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

What do you want to know exactly? Ig you wanna know whether they pay in the case of suicide or not? You have to read and fully understand the contract when you plan to apply for one and if you have one already you have to check whether they cover suicide or not. Afaik most life insurances don't cover suicide for obvious reasons but I heard from users here that their life insurances cover that after a waiting period.

 

[unknown_xav]

Afaik most life insurances don't cover suicide for obvious reasons but I heard from users here that their life insurances cover that after a waiting period.

I second this. You need to check your contract/policy first since each policy is different. Most have a waiting period for such cases. I think an easy way for OP would be to also go on a signed policy pdf and check sections on waiting period, and also nature of death i.e natural, and unnatural etc. can also use word searches such as "suicide" for example. This could help but better to read all fine print especially waiting period, and effect on share of payout based on nature of death.

 

[thot88]

I live in Finland. I have life insurance myself. It compensates for suicide if the insurance has been valid for a year before that.

 

[outrider567]

In the US, you generally have to wait two years before the life insurance will pay out after a suicide

 

[L'absent]

Take the insurance contract and go to a lawyer. He will explain everything to you. Tell your intentions in detail.

 

[needthebus]

I live in Finland. I have life insurance myself. It compensates for suicide if the insurance has been valid for a year before that.

its such an amazing country and people. i wish i were smart enough to learn finnish or be finnish

In the US, you generally have to wait two years before the life insurance will pay out after a suicide

some life insurance pays out for suicide? really???

 

[MyTimeIsUp]

Never heard of life insurance being paid out in the case of a suicide, they don't over here. I'm in the UK and cannot get life insurance, because of my history of attempts.

 

[miyabi]

You might be covered by your workplace pension/benefits/union. Check the fine print. Some of them are willing to pay out for suicide.

 

[identity0]

It depends entirely on the country and specific policy

 

[JealousOfTheElderly]

Take the insurance contract and go to a lawyer. He will explain everything to you. Tell your intentions in detail.

Or run it through AI like chatgpt and ask it to explain it to you in simple terms.

 

[L'absent]

Or run it through AI like chatgpt and ask it to explain it to you in simple terms.

I don't know how it works in the United States, but in our country the law is very complex and if you read "suicide included in the insurance premium after 2 years from the stipulation" it is not necessarily true that this is actually the case.

 

[TheHolySword]

I'm in the US, my life insurance is through my employer. Mine states that it does not payout on suicide until it has been in effect for 2 years. If I change its conditions at any point, which includes increasing its payout cost, then the timer resets since it's a new contract term. This is why I'm waiting until May 2025.

That being said, insurance companies hate having to pay money. They will always do everything they can to deny a claim or pay as little as possible (in the case of suicide they may say you did not properly disclose your conditions). If you don't have insurance yet, you aren't really going to find one that will pay without a waiting period, and if you do it will be very little. Life insurance companies can also deny policy for conditions which may include previous ctb attempts.

 

[JealousOfTheElderly]

Deny, delay, depose.... all insurance companies are the same no matter what type of insurance it is.

 

[2messdup]

What do you want to know exactly? Ig you wanna know whether they pay in the case of suicide or not? You have to read and fully understand the contract when you plan to apply for one and if you have one already you have to check whether they cover suicide or not. Afaik most life insurances don't cover suicide for obvious reasons but I heard from users here that their life insurances cover that after a waiting period.

My life insurance pays out for suicide as long as the policy is over a year old. I think it pays out at least £500k. It may be more. It's ages since I took it out so Id have to check

 

[slapntickle]

Speaking only for the UK and Europe, nearly all life insurance policies that I've looked at pay out for suicide if the policy has been held for a year or more. In the US, it seems to always be two years or more. Sometimes there will be clauses where they explicitly don't pay out for suicide, but they're few and far between. The best course of action would be to enquire (obviously from a burner email address with no connection to your own) about the specifics, just to get confirmation.

Also be aware that one can 'stack' different policies from different insurance brokers and they would all pay out. There is some discussion around them all needing to know about each other though, so it might be best to tread carefully here. Another thing is that if you have ever had a failed attempt, or you have documented mental health problems that you had treatment for, you just won't get accepted, ever, so it's best to forget it in that case. I'm not sure about if you get the policy out, pay it for a few years, and then start going to treatment (as you very well should), but I imagine that it would certainly pay out in that case (as you took the policy out "before" the problems started).

When I finish my research on this I plan to publish a definitive guide to setting up life insurance policies before suicide to maximise financial gains for family/loved ones, so watch this space.

 

[Seneca65AD]

Regarding US and Canada, the previous advice to check the fine print is spot-on. Both of my life-insurance policies have a 2 year suicide-exclusion. However, both were individual policies and not the more typical "group" life policy offered by employers as part of their benefit package. The individual policies tend to be more detailed in terms of pre-coverage underwriting - I had nurses attend to my home to run EKG, bloodwork, etc. The questionnaire only included self-harm disclosure 5 years pre-application - fortunately, my attempts where hospitalization occurred were several years before that 5-year date. Now, the premiums on both policies are very high but the policies are designed to provide my wife and staff with funds while figuring out what to do with my operating corporation.

The opposite of individual are the "group" policies which initiate from the employment relationship - those are based on very basic questionnaires with the questions being so generic that almost no one answers them to the satisfaction of the insurer. The biggest difference between individual and group policies is this: -individual does "pre-coverage underwriting" where the application is fully investigated before placing coverage. Group does "post-claim underwriting" where the actual investigation whether coverage should be placed is made after the claim is made - of course there is the difference between coverage and benefit payout but for me to get into that would probably cause a run on CTB.

Oh - and then there is the exclusion for payout where the death occurs while committing a criminal act. Normally in North America, suicide is no-longer on the books as a crime (for obvious policy reasons), but assisting a suicide can be a crime. That can be problematic where the beneficiary is also the person who assisted the suicide. And what happens when the suicide is a result of drug overdose? Did the decedent die because of suicide or a bad trip? Or getting drunk and running your car into a tree?

And one final thought - although most policies will speak to suicide exclusions being 1 to 2 years. Every jurisdiction of which I am aware has an insurance act. That insurance act will provide a fraud exception where if fraud is alleged by the broker or insurer, then benefit payment can be refused even if the insurance has been in place for more than 2 years. Now, the longer the period of time before the insurance placement and the suicide, then the weaker the fraud argument, but I have seen fraud arguments made up to 4 years post placement. Also, be careful when consulting a lawyer for suicide related questions....past self-harm attempts (just like past crimes) do not have to be reported ( due to solicitor/attorney-client privilege), however, an indication of a future self-harm attempt may well have a positive obligation on the lawyer to report it.

--- Finally, this is not legal advice - you pay for legal advice. These are my thoughts....

 

[slapntickle]

Regarding US and Canada, the previous advice to check the fine print is spot-on. Both of my life-insurance policies have a 2 year suicide-exclusion. However, both were individual policies and not the more typical "group" life policy offered by employers as part of their benefit package. The individual policies tend to be more detailed in terms of pre-coverage underwriting - I had nurses attend to my home to run EKG, bloodwork, etc. The questionnaire only included self-harm disclosure 5 years pre-application - fortunately, my attempts where hospitalization occurred were several years before that 5-year date. Now, the premiums on both policies are very high but the policies are designed to provide my wife and staff with funds while figuring out what to do with my operating corporation.

The opposite of individual are the "group" policies which initiate from the employment relationship - those are based on very basic questionnaires with the questions being so generic that almost no one answers them to the satisfaction of the insurer. The biggest difference between individual and group policies is this: -individual does "pre-coverage underwriting" where the application is fully investigated before placing coverage. Group does "post-claim underwriting" where the actual investigation whether coverage should be placed is made after the claim is made - of course there is the difference between coverage and benefit payout but for me to get into that would probably cause a run on CTB.

I'm no expert on US/Canadian policies, but I can well imagine that they are as you've described, and will of course try their hardest to get out of any claims after the beneficiary has died. I could easily see them trying to wiggle out of genuine accidental deaths too. Just did some brief digging with ChatGPT - interestingly, in the UK, 96% of claims are paid out (for suicide or otherwise). In the US, 10-20% of claims have some form of initial resistance from the brokers pushing back. Not huge differences. Also, it says that around 25-30% of all life insurance claims in the UK for men 20-29 are suicide related - I'm actually shocked that it's so high.

The point about a fatal drug overdose is pertinent. I think that overdosing on recreational drug may well void lots of claims (including from European insurers) as I've noticed that lots of them have clauses related to not paying out for narcotic use etc. That's because if someone is a heavy drug user and they didn't state it when they took out the policy, then that could be seen to be dishonest and invalidate the claim, even if the death was clearly a suicide ie had notes, intention and so on. Personally speaking, if the life insurance aspect of my death was important to me (and in my case it absolutely is I have dependents), I would not risk ODing on fentanyl etc. The risks are too great.

Something I'm interested in is just how much one can actually get. A broker I spoke to told me that it's safe to go around 20x your earnings in total, across all your policies. I'm really not sure why your. earnings should affect your ability to pay more premiums and have more coverage though, and I do wonder if having more than 20x your annual earnings in payouts would cause problems for getting paid out on all of them?

 

[Seneca65AD]

Something I'm interested in is just how much one can actually get. A broker I spoke to told me that it's safe to go around 20x your earnings in total, across all your policies. I'm really not sure why your. earnings should affect your ability to pay more premiums and have more coverage though, and I do wonder if having more than 20x your annual earnings in payouts would cause problems for getting paid out on all of them?

Interesting question. I know that early 40's can obtain typical policies around 20X annual income with moderate premiums. 60-70 age range is more around 5 x or so with much larger premiums. It also depends on the demographics of the applicant - general health, earnings, debts such as mortgages, etc. Whole life is a much better investment than term life in the long-run, but people with the CTB mindset such as myself may not be prepared to hang around until it pays off. My 2 policies are both term life but they are high premiums due to their value. I'm amazed at how relatively inexpensive similar value policies are when the insured is 20's or 30's.

Every case or situation is different but it is fairly accurate to say the longer a person has an insurance policy before CTB, the fewer problems there could be in payout.

 

[slapntickle]

I think there's a risk of over-analysing it here. Based on the research I've done, and the pay-out percentages, I think a non-narcotic based suicide after one year in Europe and two in the US is going to work pretty much all the time. One issue I've had is that obviously one cannot ask the insurance broker/provider any direct questions about specific suicide clauses, and I'd also not ask any lawyer either. Perhaps from a burner identity, but even then, I don't think any decent lawyer is going to answer questions related to suicide payoffs... actual data is very hard to come by, but it would be extremely useful to have an email from the insurance provider stating 'yes, we pay out for suicides after 12 months of policy payments').
I would like to create a megathread on the subject, because I feel it's one of the actually more logical, altruistic and kind sides of suicide (not that I'm discrediting any other reasons, I just think that when emotions are taken out of the equation, a big cash payoff for a struggling family is really hard to argue against). The money left can actually be life-changing for your family or loved ones who remain, and you may well prevent more suicide by doing so. The thought of those close to me being able to live a secure, comfortable and stress-free life in a decent place of living really does make me feel good and absolutely helps me get closer to going through with CTB.

 

[knowledgeseeking]

In the US, most employer sponsored plans have a suicide clause. Most that I have seen have a minimum 2 year waiting period. I would guess that private life insurance may be even more inflexible. You will need to check your plan.

 

[enditplz]

I've looked into this before. Most insurance companies in the US have a 2 year suicide clause. BUT if you've ever disclosed your depression or suicidal ideations to a healthcare professional, it is highly likely they will deny the claim anyways.

 

[AltF4Mylife]

In india,
If the suicide happens after 12 months,
The full death benefit (sum assured) is paid to the nominee, just like any other cause of death.

 

[slapntickle]

I've looked into this before. Most insurance companies in the US have a 2 year suicide clause. BUT if you've ever disclosed your depression or suicidal ideations to a healthcare professional, it is highly likely they will deny the claim anyways.

Yeah, consensus is that in the US it's two years, and the rest of the world it's one year. Absolutely fair enough IMO. I think better would be a universal three year exclusion clause...

Re your point about that, I'm not sure how the US system works, but how would they know? If you went to a private therapist and told them about your suicidal ideations, how on earth are the insurance companies going to a. find out where you went and who you saw and b. get them to divulge intimate details about your therapy sessions whilst your body's still warm? I get if you went to some state (ie government) mental health facility and self-committed or whatever then yeah, you obviously had pre-existing mental health conditions that would likely either make your premiums shoot up or (more likely) make you uninsurable, but I'm just trying to get a handle on the mechanics of this.