For a guy who’s studied suicide notes extensively, he’s done a piss-poor job counting how many people leave them. 12 to 37%? That’s a huge range!
Plus, group policies (i.e. for all employees) tend to cover suicide since you usually don’t have the option of signing up in contemplation of leaving a windfall shortly.
Somebody once told me of a suicide many years ago by someone who jumped into a vat of molten metal after attracting the attention of everyone nearby with his yelling. (“It was like the roadrunner cartoons - there was a glowing outline in the shape of his body for a few minutes”) Apparently the head of the millworks there got his family workers’ compensation pension. Based on his family and co-worker accounts, his erratic behaviour over previous months seemed very much like brain cancer, and they only fished a few larger bones out of the vat so “prove it wasn’t”.
I don’t follow this. I don’t get why you couldn’t cover 100 employees, but have a clause that says suicide’s not covered for the first year or two.
I thought it was basically the free market that beat back the suicide loophole for life insurance companies - it’s bad PR to not pay out life insurance.
You know what?I should’ve linked to this Cecil article when I first saw this thread.
I’m a bit confused. In a normal Civil case, isn’t the ‘normal’ burden of proof just the preponderance of the evidence?
Is the ‘bursting bubble’ idea just emphasizing that once there’s any evidence at all, the presumption shouldn’t carry any weight? [In other words, the insurance company just has to show – however narrowly – greater than 50% chance suicide, not 50% plus some extra amount because of the presumption?]
Yes. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. Any admissible evidence bursts the bubble, but the jury need not necessarily consider all admissible evidence in evaluating whether a party has met its burden of proof.
In other words, if the insurance company puts a crackhead with eight prior perjury convictions on the stand, the jury will probably not give his testimony any weight. However, if he testifies that he saw the decedent kill himself, that’s enough to rebut the presumption.
I have taken out policies with the intention of committing suicide 2-3 years later. Every one I’ve purchased had the 2 year clause mentioned by others.
FWIW, a little after 2 years I cancelled the policies, partly so I wouldn’t feel tempted. At this point I’ve decided I will never do that unless it’s sudden.
Aha.
The conversation about Employee Group Life not having a suicide exclusion clause was in a benefits seminar in the late 1980’s. I assume the 2-year thing has appeared since then, since it was common knowledge when I was growing up (true or not) that suicides were excluded,
The logic was the despondent could go out and get a large policy at an insurance agent any time; but it would be rather difficult to get yourself hired in a job with decent benefits with the major motive being to qualify for the mandatory life insurance benefit. The employee had no choice, was automatically enrolled. So, presumably the insurance company was not being taken to the cleaners.