Suicide and Life Insurance AN ARGUMENT By S. Ross PARKER, B. S., LL.B., OF SEATTLE, WASH. GENERAL discussion of suicide
This, of course, means suicide while
clauses in life insurance policies would be too prolix for publication in a magazine article. This paper will, therefore, discuss the law applicable
sane. In such a case a suicide's policy would be void if payable to the suicide's heirs, whereas if it were payable directly to the same heirs as beneficiaries named
to one particular state of circumstances
in the policy, it would not be void.
of suicide by policy holders.
In the absence of any statute to the
If. in such a case, the suicide‘s heirs were young children, then their designa
contrary, a clause in a life insurance
tion in the policy as heirs merely would
policy which states that the assurer will not be liable in the event of the suicide, sane or insane, of the assured,
prevent them from recovering on their parent's policy, whereas, if the parent had used the ingenious foresight neces
is valid.
sary to carry out his most likely in
Generally, the insurance com
pany will, of course, be liable if the
tention, those children might have been
policy states merely that the company will not be liable if the assured die by his own hand, and the assured commits
saved any anxiety of becoming wards
suicide while insane.
(The phrases “die
by his own hand,” “self-destruction,” “take his own life," “suicide," rate,
are adjudged synonymous.)
In other
of the state. There is a maxim of Anglo
Saxon law quite as age-honored as the one generally cited to bolster up the above doctrine, and it is that when the reason of the law ceases the law itself ceases. Is there any meritorious reason
words, to escape liability for the suicide of an insane policy holder, the insurance company must so stipulate in the insurance contract. These propositions
why persons in whose interests a con
are so elementary that there is no appreciable diversity of opinion on them.
designated in a particular manner there
Vhat if there is no provision in the
policy in regard to suicide, and the assured takes his own life while sane? A recent, and authoritative, reference work says: “In the absence of any express exception as to suicide, or self
destruction, the beneficiary is not de feated by the wrongful act of the assured in taking his own life, such defense being available only as against the assured or his personal representa~ tives.”1
tract has been demonstrably, though not expressly, made cannot have the bene fits of that contract because they are in?
The situation is further aided by
that one of the basic maxims of our law which declares that that is a cer tainty which can be reduced to a certainty. Does the slight difliculty of showing who are the heirs in some cases justify such a classification of their rights as to deprive them of bene fits which under the same state of cir cumstances are allowed to go to others, re gardless of the probable preference of the one whose death gives rise to the benefits? This paper is not, by the way, an
argument that beneficiaries should pro ‘25 Cyc, 881, citing decisions in six states: contra, 94 Fed. 729.
fit by the voluntary suicide of a sane
