So I’ve been ringing around what feels like every life insurance provider in New Zealand, and none of them have been able to help me with this. So I’m wondering if the teeming millions can help.
Life insurance providers have terminal illness clauses in most of their policies. These say that if you are diagnosed with a terminal illness with a life expectancy of less than 12/6 months, you recieve either full payout or a percentage of your cover. Also most of them have a 13 month stand down on suicide.
What I want to kjnow is, what is the policy in terms of the apocalypse?
In a scenario where the world is definately going to end, and no one is going to survive, and everyone has like 8 months to live, would insurance companies pay out like they would if you were diagnosed with a terminal illness, or is there some clause which means they wouldn’t have to pay out.
I’m trying to write a book and I really need to know, but no insurance companies here seem to have prepared for that eventuality, which is kind of silly.
So do any overseas insurers have a clearer policy? Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.
Seems pretty clear that if the insurance companies had to pay out on all their policies, they’d immediately go bankrupt. So, the question is moot - if for any reason everyone was able to make a claim then no one would get anything (or, at best, pennies on the dollar).
I’ve worked for several life insurers. I don’t think any of them ever had a policy about what it would do in the event of an approaching apocalypse.
It’s an interesting scenario. One thing they wouldn’t do is pay all of the sums insured, because they wouldn’t have sufficient assets to do so. They’d probably try to just run along “business as usual lines” i.e. paying genuine claims during the final months, which would be rendered more difficult by the likely depression in asset values and drying up of the insurers’ premium income.
In reverse order, here in the states the sucide clause is 2 years from date of issue. If you kill yourself within this time the company only has to refund premiums paid.
I was in the insurance business many many years ago and at this time there was not a terminal illness clause like you describe in US policys.
As far as the apocalypse goes, until you are dead the policy did not pay. If it was truely the end of the world, the company could just say no, and sue us if you don’t like it. The world would be ended before it ever got to court.
Oh yeah I get that it would bankrupt them, which wouldn’t really matter anyway. But it seems funny that no one I talked to had even really thought about it - I mean, as unlikely as it is, it could happen anytime. It seems like a kind of large oversight.
I’m trying to figure out if any of my characters would have gotten massive insurance payouts. And I know it’s fiction, so I could just make it that they do, but I think it would be neat to know. Maybe they could refuse to pay out and everyone can storm the insurance buildings. oooh, that could be funfun…
For a plot point in a fictional work, you make the subjects of your story the FIRST folks that thought of it, and they somehow get it through the system… then the press catches on, and others try to do it and fail. The subject has his $$$, and of course goes on a mad spree of women, drugs, and liquor! (The 3 cardnal sins of course! :D) Everyone else that was too dumb to think of it loses out, and you go on with your plot (which involved sin, I hope! :D)
If it were known that the world was only seven or eight months away from destruction, wouldn’t money itself become worthless more or less instantly? I would think the entire social order would disintegrate pretty quickly, with only things like water, food, clothing, shelter, weapons and medicine having any real value.
Is it just possible that there’s no such thing as the Apocalypse, that it’s just a religious fantasy? If so, why should any secular organization have plans for it?
Sure it’s possible. But what if NASA gets their decimal points in line this time, and that asteroid the size of Texas really is going to hit us? Or the sun burns out? Or [insert spectacular ending-of-life-as-we-know-it Atheist friendly doomsday scenario here].
OTOH, insurance companies routinely do have “Act of God” or “Hand of God” clauses, with God language intact, so to say they are devoid of religion doesn’t seem quite correct. They’ll use God as a scapegoat.
Apocalypse in its literal sense should only refer to the religious event as described by St. John (or whomever it was claiming to be him). Which isn’t really the point of the question. If, say, astronomers discovered a rogue asteroid the size of Ceres on a collision course with Earth in 8 months, it’s probably pretty safe to say that we’re screwed. At best, in that situation, we might be able to send out a legacy probe, with a record of our civilization and frozen human embryos, in case an alien race ever found it and decided to bring us back from extinction. The difference between this scenario and a literal Biblical apocalypse is minimal, from the insurance company’s point of view.
Now, admittedly, a rogue asteroid the size of Ceres is pretty unlikely, which is one reason nobody gives any serious thought to such things. But this is fiction, after all.
WhyNot, I think you’re willfully misunderstanding my comment.
Natural disasters are the very opposite of Acts of God, even if they are referred to by that name. There’s a huge difference between an apocalypse and the Apocalypse.
No, I’m not willfully misunderstanding anything. Misunderstanding, perhaps, but not willfully.
I can see two ways to take your statement:
In the first would be that there is no non-religious event which could impact the insurance industry in a similar manner that the hypothetical Apocylpse would - that is, cause millions of people to attempt to collect on their policies at once. I disagree - I think there are several scenarios, although far-fetched, which would put planet-wide pressure on the insurance industry during a time of panic and imminent doom.
From a second point of view, I hear you saying that The Apocylypse is a fictional religious event, and therefore it seems logical and obvious that the the OP has found no insurance industry standard on what to do it such an event. This can only be logical if you are claiming that the insurance industry is overtly atheist, or at least not accepting of that particular religious myth. I pointed out that they use religious terminology in their paperwork, so they are logically not Athiest, at least when it serves them. I’ve reviewed insurance paperwork which uses the precise terminology “Act of God” with a capital G, not “natural disaster” - yet they’re talking about things which you or I would call a “natural disaster”. Therefore, the insurance company is explicity stating a belief in God and His/Her/Its ability to take action against the insured. In such a case, one would expect an industry spokesman to, at the very least, tell the OP that the Apocalypse falls under Act of God and no payout will be made.
In the US, A lot of *property *insurance has exclusions for highly correlated casualties, like “acts of god,” flood, and war.
Life insurance is a little different. It usually has provisions for misstatments on the application, but state law limits the period during which the insurer can contest coverage based on these, usually to two years.
Accidental is sometimes defined as a sudden, unexpected event that was not reasonably foreseeable.
Since the apocalypse hasn’t happened, you won’t be able to find any cases on point discussing whether that event is considered accidental under a given policy. But it’d make a good insurance law exam question.
The company will pay out on life insurance only after receiving documents that prove the death of the insured. If a doctor tells John Doe that he has a medical condition which will kill him in a month, Doe is not entitled to any benefits from his life insurance policy. When he is dead, and a doctor has made out an official death certificate, and the beneficiary has sent a copy of that death certificate and all other required paperwork to the proper office of the insurer, only then is the company required to pay.
Using existing procedures, an apocalypse, an Apocalypse, Apokolips or Apocalypse does not change anything. Payout is made to the beneficiary only when the company has received the required paperwork proving that death has occured. So long as the insured person is legally alive, the insurance company will not pay out nor is it required to do so.
If I were the insurance company, I’d simply refuse to pay on the grounds that no one can reasonably predict what will happen when Mars spirals out of orbit and smashes into earth. Maybe all life will be destroyed; maybe people living inland will be spared from the giant wave that comes when the rogue planet hits the ocean; maybe the prevailing winds will spare Canada from the the giant dust cloud that chokes the entire southern hemisphere.
There’s no point in planning for a situation in which all your plans would be meaningless. Establishing a policy on such a thing would just be a waste of money.
