"The Todal" wrote in message
news:68dpo2F2ssmtbU1@mid.individual.net...
>
> "Palindrome" wrote in message
> news:U1iUj.107520$3k2.13696@fe10.news.easynews.com...
>> Alasdair wrote:
>>> "The 32-year-old, believed to be Mark Saunders, a barrister, died
>>> after earlier exchanging shots with police in Markham Square,
>>> Chelsea".
>>>
>>> It must be most unusual for a barrister to get involved in a shoot-out
>>> with police. Does anyone know what this is all about?
>>>
>> AFAIK, far more solicitors lose the plot and use a shotgun for personal
>> plaque treatment than barristers. From what I have read about this little
>> episode, it does rather sound like death by cop.
>>
>> I assume that life insurance companies treat such adventures in much the
>> same way as suicide and refuse to pay out?
>
> I would be surprised if there was any general rule or policy term that
> entitled an insurance company to avoid paying out if the policyholder
> commits suicide. Maybe it is occasionally inserted into a policy, but I
> think customers should refuse to sign up to that.
>
There certainly used to be such a rule in the days when suicide was a
criminal offence - see Beresford v Royal Insurance [1938] AC 586, where the
headnote reads
The personal representative of a person, who, having insured his life,
commits suicide while sane, cannot recover the policy moneys from the
insurance company, for it would be contrary to public policy to assist a
personal representative to recover the fruits of the crime committed by the
assured. It makes no difference in law that the policy on its true
construction binds the insurance company to pay in the event of the
assured's suicide while sane, after the expiry of a year from the
commencement of the insurance, for the Court will not enforce a provision
which is illegal or contrary to public policy.
Of course that might well be thought to be overtaken by the Suicide Act
1961, which abolished the common law rule that suicide was a crime.
However, there is also a general principle of insurance law that there can
be no recovery for a loss deliberately caused by the policyholder, and
suicide is a perfect example of that.
That said, I have known cases where insurers have paid on an apparent
suicide, though that does not prove that they were legally liable.
Andrew McGee
|