Can I buy a L.I. policy for my husband, with or without his knowledge? I don’t want him to die, but I want some assurance that I’m not going to be left high and dry out of the blue.
Long story short, my husband pulled a REALLY stupid stunt yesterday that could have gotten him killed and/or sued, but luckily ended with an ambulance ride and a short stay in the ED. Thanks to job fluctuations a while back, he’d let a lot of the insurance drop. Now he has health, liability and disability, but no life insurance - and I’ve been nagging at him to get it back for a while. Given the nature of his/our business and our current life/finances, if he splats himself for good I’m screwed.
Yes. The owner of a life insurance policy need not be the insured. The owner, who pays the premiums, gets to choose the beneficiary.
Want go give your children a large death benefit? Let them take out a life insurance policy on your life. Then, you give them the money to pay the premiums. When you die, they get the proceeds tax free.
Getting a policy without the insured’s knowledge will be tough because most life insurance policies require a physical.
You can take out a life insurance policy on anyone you have an interest in. So a spouse is well in the clear.
You can’t take one out on someone you don’t have any personal/financial/etc. relationship with. E.g., you can’t take one out on Donald Trump (unless you are his wife, business partner, or some such).
There was a controversy a few years back about companies taking out insurance policies on employees without their knowledge. Legal, but people weren’t happy.
Sans physical, there will be restrictions on what they will pay out for which reasons for a while. They also might charge more.
It has been my experience that, even though it is legal to buy insurance on a spouse without his knowledge, most agents are a little hinky about doing this. I think they are worried that they will be dragged into the criminal case when your spouse is mysteriously killed three day later.
Not all life insurance policies require a physical.
Without his knowledge? As a practical matter, it seems like it would be pretty difficult. I mean, doesn’t life insurance require you to authorize release of medical information and submit to an exam? How would you accomplish these things without his knowledge and consent?
Also, if the cause of death is an interesting misadventure, you might want to verify that it’s covered. Some policies might not cover activities like sky-diving, flying in experimental (homebuilt) aircraft, hang gliding or other risky sports; not sure how criminally stupid stuff is covered, but I wonder if committing a crime (i.e. shot by police during bank robbery) is covered? Likely not. Drunk driving? Don’t know. Never needed answer fast…
Some of this depends on your state, but in general, there’s two different things here. If all you want is enough money to cover the funeral and not much else, you can get that coverage without a physical. If that’s what you want, a good starting place might be your bank–a lot of those policies are sold with the cooperation of banks, and the premium is automatically deducted from your account.
If you want $100,000 or more of insurance, he will definitely need a physical.
There’s also Accidental Death & Disability (AD&D) insurance, which will pay small amounts for various severe accidents (as an example, $500 for losing a finger) and will pay if he is killed in certain types of accidents. However, this is not considered to be actual life insurance.
Yeah, I get a lot of ads for AD&D insurance. They sound like life insurance ads, but you read carefully and they only cover acidents. Keel over with a aheart attack and you are not covered. They are aimed at elderly who don’t read carefully, I think. Plus, older people are less likely to engange in physically risky behaviour, unless you count walking down the stairs. So they appear to be low-priced life insurance but it’s unlikely they ever need to pay out.
Buying accidental death insurance is silly. Does it make any difference to your family (financially) how you die? Why have a $100k policy that pays $200k if you die in an accident? If you really need $200k, then get $200k worth of insurance regardless of the manner of death.
As has been mentioned, you have an insurable interest in your husband, that isn’t the problem.
Every LI application I have seen has a place for signature of the proposed insured, and signature to OK release of medical records.
How do you plan to get him to sign it?
If you forge the signature, the policy is contestable for two years, and could become a huge issue upon his death.
Oh, I wouldn’t really have to hide it from him, it’s more that getting him to get a physical will take an act of congress. He does have regular health ins plus disability ins. He ‘thinks’ there’s Life on that policy too, he’s just not sure. I’m going to have to do all the legwork on this I guess, and hope that they’ll talk to me, even though he set it up. Sometimes if I’m not specifically named as an official contact (even though we are married and I can rattle off all the necessary info without missing a beat) I can’t even get a payment address out of customer service. Yeah I know it’s for safety, blah blah blah, but it’s a PITA.
Thanks for all your help, I appreciate any and all input!
The insurance company will most likely send a nurse to conduct the physical at his (your husband’s) convenience, either to your house or his place of work. Based on my experience as a customer a couple of times: a few health history questions, step on a portable scale for his weight, pee in a cup, blood pressure cuff, draw blood. Easy peasy.
You misunderstand. These ONLY PAY if you die accidentally. If you die of a health problem (heart attack, cancer) they pay nothing. They seem to be aimed at older people who are likely to croak without collecting. They also seem to mention “accidental” in one of those “whoosh” moments that you might miss if not paying attention; and the premiums, consequently, are low enough that older people who find real life insurance expensive will think “Wow! That’s cheap! And no medical!”
It’s not silly, but it’s certainly less valuable. I had a lot of trouble getting life insurance because of some medical conditions. A lot of companies flat refused to give me a quote. In many cases they would say something like, “We can’t give you regular life insurance because of such-and-such medical condition, but we can give you AD&D instead.”
I was very tempted, because it’s better than nothing. But eventually I did find a way to get regular life insurance, albeit at a high cost.