Regarding suicide exclusion in life insurance… the current clause in
India is, if the insurance buyer commits suicide, then - Policy is terminated,
death benefits is not paid
Who is getting the benefit of suicide here? The insurance company?
Why should a paying customer and their nominee / family be punished for
this act? – isn’t suicide a mental HEALTH condition… which should be viewed as any other HEALTH
condition?
Of course, that brings in some questions…
What is the % of people – who commit suicide (in India and worldwide)
Suppose 100 people take insurance, how many die – due to suicide?
The people who committed suicide – how many were leading regular lives –
for how many years? - for example if
people who commit suicide seem to have put in average of 10 years of regular
life, - then it can be assumed that they didn’t buy insurance with intention of
committing suicide…
And now the MOST IMP aspect…
Why is death by suicide is seen as controllable by individual
will? And other causes of death are not
considered as out of control?
What about other health risk behaviors/habits not considered in the
same light?
Depression or state of depression (heightened sense of helplessness
& hopelessness) leads a person to suicidal behavior – it’s not something an
individual can claim to have willful control over.
It would be like claiming – I won’t
die of stroke, or heart problems, or accident.
It can happen to anyone, and insurance risk should cover it. (Some
conditions can be set to block people about to commit suicide from buying
insurance, i.e. set an immediate time period, and as it is, there are enough safeguards
already). What say?
Why should mental health conditions should be treated as a pariah ?
1 comment:
the assumption is that people will commit suicide to get the life insurance money or the other way round, which we see in movies, kill some family member and try to pass it off as suicide. but of course the mental health dimension is critical and should be accounted for in the insurance policies. nice thought.
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