Most life insurance policies have a 1-3 year exclusion time where if you commit suicide during that time they don’t pay out. But if it’s a long-standing life insurance policy, past that exclusion window, it does pay out even in the case of suicide, with very few exceptions.
MAiD is special because you count as having died of whatever your underlying disease is. It’s not legally suicide. Your death certificate says you died of cancer or whatever your terminal illness was, and Oregon’s gone to some lengths to make a clear distinction between MAiD and suicide. In fact, Oregon law actually specifically prohibits insurance companies from penalizing you as if you’d committed suicide if you make use of MAiD. So in principle even if you did MAiD within the suicide exemption window of a typical life insurance contract, it would still have to pay out. In practice I don’t know of any case law where it’s actually come up. But check out ORS 127.875 §3.13. Insurance or annuity policies, which says:
The sale, procurement, or issuance of any life, health, or accident insurance or annuity policy or the rate charged for any policy shall not be conditioned upon or affected by the making or rescinding of a request, by a person, for medication to end his or her life in a humane and dignified manner. Neither shall a qualified patient’s act of ingesting medication to end his or her life in a humane and dignified manner have an effect upon a life, health, or accident insurance or annuity policy.
Do you get life insurance on MAiD? I’d be very surprised.
edit: well, the google AI agent says yes you actually do! Color me impressed. Guess they trust the legal checks on that.
Most life insurance policies have a 1-3 year exclusion time where if you commit suicide during that time they don’t pay out. But if it’s a long-standing life insurance policy, past that exclusion window, it does pay out even in the case of suicide, with very few exceptions.
MAiD is special because you count as having died of whatever your underlying disease is. It’s not legally suicide. Your death certificate says you died of cancer or whatever your terminal illness was, and Oregon’s gone to some lengths to make a clear distinction between MAiD and suicide. In fact, Oregon law actually specifically prohibits insurance companies from penalizing you as if you’d committed suicide if you make use of MAiD. So in principle even if you did MAiD within the suicide exemption window of a typical life insurance contract, it would still have to pay out. In practice I don’t know of any case law where it’s actually come up. But check out ORS 127.875 §3.13. Insurance or annuity policies, which says: