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I think any insurance company would have a lifelong suicide exclusion if they could. I’m pretty sure they are legally obligated to pay after two years, as it’s

I think any insurance company would have a lifelong suicide exclusion if they could. I’m pretty sure they are legally obligated to pay after two years, as it’s be too easy for nearly any insurance company to claim most deaths were possibly a suicide. The main point being that you can’t pay the mortgage on your house, which may be the sole reason you got life insurance, if the benefits aren’t being paid out. Also, there are some policies that do have limited benefits the first two years. This is especially common for any type of insurance that doesn’t require a medical exam. They tend to be very expensive for the amount of insurance they provide, but maybe have a manageable monthly payment because the amount of coverage is relatively low. This type of insurance is usually “I can’t qualify for anything else” coverage, or it’s for a very specific purpose, like paying for funeral expenses when for some reason the person didn’t have the desire to just save that money in the bank.

bombcar 3y ago
The problem for the industry with the "no questions asked" plans is the only people who sign up for them are the ones who have no other option, which makes them more expensive, which makes the only people who sign up for them ... etc etc etc.
- devoutsalsa 3y ago
  Yes. There’s a few factors: - higher premiums for everyone because the pool of applicants aren’t that healthy - the super sick people simply die in the first two years - the semi sick people can hang on for years, but weak health may me limited ability to pay because of limited employment prospects - the not sick people will find better prices or simply realize the insurance is overpriced and cancel it
philsnow 3y ago
> I think any insurance company would have a lifelong suicide exclusion if they could I suspect you're right. There certainly are desperate people who go to Vegas, lose their entire savings, and choose to end their life because they're not willing to put in the work to continue trying to survive for another, say, 40 years, starting with zero assets. There are also people with severe mental illness (poor/no executive function, prone to psychotic episodes, imbalances in their brain chemistry) who make poor choices or don't even consciously make choices but their body is nonetheless doing things, who end up also choosing to end their lives. There is overlap between these two groups. How could an insurance company decide which is which? If cancer can kill you and they pay out for that, why would they not pay out for deaths due to mental illness? Because they can. We're becoming more willing to talk about mental health, but there's still a ways to go. There's a ton of stuff that can go wrong with the mind and I couldn't hazard a guess at what proportion of people are 100% okay.
- bumby 3y ago
  There’s also probably some social bias. In the US, we have a strong bias towards self-determinism and saying someone did something because (in-effect) they are pre-wired to make that deterministic action flies in the face of social conventions about individual free will. There are always some policies that are shot down because they run against social normative ideas, even if those ideas are shown to be false. (The free will vs determinism is obviously overly simplistic above)

bombcar 3y ago

The problem for the industry with the "no questions asked" plans is the only people who sign up for them are the ones who have no other option, which makes them more expensive, which makes the only people who sign up for them ... etc etc etc.

devoutsalsa 3y ago
Yes. There’s a few factors: - higher premiums for everyone because the pool of applicants aren’t that healthy - the super sick people simply die in the first two years - the semi sick people can hang on for years, but weak health may me limited ability to pay because of limited employment prospects - the not sick people will find better prices or simply realize the insurance is overpriced and cancel it

philsnow 3y ago

> I think any insurance company would have a lifelong suicide exclusion if they could I suspect you're right. There certainly are desperate people who go to Vegas, lose their entire savings, and choose to end their life because they're not willing to put in the work to continue trying to survive for another, say, 40 years, starting with zero assets. There are also people with severe mental illness (poor/no executive function, prone to psychotic episodes, imbalances in their brain chemistry) who make poor choices or don't even consciously make choices but their body is nonetheless doing things, who end up also choosing to end their lives. There is overlap between these two groups. How could an insurance company decide which is which? If cancer can kill you and they pay out for that, why would they not pay out for deaths due to mental illness? Because they can. We're becoming more willing to talk about mental health, but there's still a ways to go. There's a ton of stuff that can go wrong with the mind and I couldn't hazard a guess at what proportion of people are 100% okay.

bumby 3y ago
There’s also probably some social bias. In the US, we have a strong bias towards self-determinism and saying someone did something because (in-effect) they are pre-wired to make that deterministic action flies in the face of social conventions about individual free will. There are always some policies that are shot down because they run against social normative ideas, even if those ideas are shown to be false. (The free will vs determinism is obviously overly simplistic above)