Hi everyone, I am talking about a very emotive topic today after being approached on social media as to how insurers view assisted dying. With recent debates on passing assisted dying laws in the Scottish and Isle of Man governments, it is something that is likely to be discussed by UK insurers at some stage.
I have been very clear not to provide an opinion about whether assisted dying should and shouldn’t be allowed, instead focusing on the facts of how the majority of life insurance policies in the UK would behave if a claim was made following someone choosing to die due to their health. At the end of the episode I include some details of support services that you can reach out to, if you have found the discussion difficult to listen to.
The key takeaways:
- The majority of insurers in the UK offer life insurance with an initial 12 month suicide exclusion
- In Canada where assisted dying is possible, the insurers do not consider death through these means to be suicide
- In countries where assisted dying is allowed physical and mental health conditions ca be viewed differently
Next time I will be back and focusing upon protection insurance planning when you have an IHT liability. There’s some specific do’s and dont’s that can make huge differences to how life insurance claims pay out.
Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.
If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.
Kathryn Knowles
00:00
Hey everyone, we are on season nine, episode six. And today, it’s just me, and I’m gonna be talking to you about some and thoughts, not opinions, but some thoughts on assisted dying and protection insurance. This is something that I was approached about on social media, somebody was asking me how life insurance payout would work if somebody did go down the assisted dying route. And I think it’s really important one to cover to just be clear as to how insurance policies stand at the moment in regards to claims like this, how things might change going forward. I’ve been doing some research and different things like that. But at the moment, we don’t really have any kind of guidance, specifically in the UK with it not being something that’s in a sense, and currently allowable in the UK, and for the medical systems. So I’ve been looking at other countries, and some of their insurance situations just to sort of see if I can provide some thoughts as to what might happen if things change here. And one of the reasons we’re doing this is that there is the there’s been the debate happening in the Scottish Parliament about potentially passing assisted dying laws. And most recently, it was out of man, something has been said that it’s also been debated there as well. So it is something that is very topical subject.
So as I say, there’s not going to be any kinds of opinions as to whether or not assisted dying should be allowable or not. We’re just talking purely from the insurance side of things and what it can potentially mean for a claim. And I would like to just obviously flaggers to everybody as well that so just please bear in mind that you know, we are talking about, quite specifically death here. I do know that we speak quite a lot about life insurance in the podcast, but we are talking very, very much bottom emotive topic here. angry with discussing terminal illnesses, people choosing to enter the life this offseason is generally people in a very vulnerable position, possibly, it could be due to things like cancers, things like motor neuron disease, dementia, could be mental health issues, things like that, I’m always trying my best to obviously do these episodes in a very empathetic manner. And to make sure that I keep everything as as factual as possible and opinionated, but I am gonna be detailing some medical information, some statistics, I’m gonna be speaking quite directly about insurance terminology. And so it’s some of it might feel quite direct in terms of the things that I’m saying. So it might feel a bit intense for some people, depending upon your own personal situation that you might be in. And the reasons for you listening to this. And if you do require any support after listening to this episode, then I do mention some support services sort of like towards the end that might be useful if you do feel that, if he’s just unsettled, you’re a little bit and it can be surprising sometimes when you sometimes listen to things that can be emotive, how you go into them thinking, well, this isn’t going to affect me. And actually, by the end of it, you you sometimes can feel quite affected. So everybody, this is the practical protection podcast.
03:17
So as I say this, I’m always asking people to reach out to me to sort of see if there’s anything particular that you want me to cover. And obviously, I do my best to cover things as as much as I can do. And some things we’ve already maybe covered in the podcasts. And some things it might be that there’s you know, it might be such an unusual situation, that it’s actually quite difficult to, to sort of really anonymize the situation, in a sense, if it’s if it’s really, really specific to somebody, or specific, you know, sometimes very, very rare health conditions, then it can be trickier to do but with this one, there was a little bit of debate, I think, in my mind as to whether or not I should actually do this episode, just because of the fact that you know, we don’t have the assisted dying legislation in the UK, so I don’t have the case studies to share from the UK as to what things haven’t haven’t happened. But at the same point, it struck me that it was important because if somebody is in a situation where they are incredibly ill and we are we are usually talking to these situations that somebody is, is terminally ill and things are not comfortable, that it’s only fair that they know really what’s happening with their insurances. And and I wanted to cover that. And I think when we are talking about things like assisted dying, nobody wants anybody to be suffering.
So you know, insurers don’t have things at you know, the majority I was gonna say the majority of insurances in the UK and do not have any statements that say, you know, that if you were to take your life through an assisted dying with a duty, say a medical condition, there’s nothing in the systems at the moment that say that they won’t pay claim all that it would invalidate the insurance. There are some insurances where we could maybe have a bit of a grey area, but the majority of insurers in the UK that are offering life insurance don’t have any kind of exclusion in regards to that. And people might wonder, like, well, what does this mean, and this can, and obviously, I’m, I’m going to be talking terminology here. And again, I’m not stating which way it is, or I’m just, I’m just presenting what sometimes arguments can be. So in terms of life insurance in the UK, currently, so this is mid 2024. In the UK, currently, the insurers have genuinely what’s known as a 12 month suicide exclusion on new life insurance policies, not all insurers, not all insurance policies, but the majority significant majority have a 12 month suicide exclusion. And the reason for that is is is for a number of reasons, obviously, we don’t want to be doing something where if somebody’s feeling very, very poorly, and especially obviously, through their mental health, let’s say, and they make a very, very quick decision to go out, I’m going to insure myself, and then in two days time, I’ll, I will decide to take my life.
So what we don’t want to do is, is as an industry is, you know, it’s not encouraged people to be in that situation, you obviously would much prefer people to be getting support and to hopefully, find a situation where they can not feel that way, if at all possible. And there’s also obviously there is a commercial aspect to it as well, from an insurance point of view, you know, insurers are a business ultimately. And they compare to insurance claims, because of the fact that people take out these insurance policies, and they’re paying a premium. And after a while, these premiums all obviously add up, which then means that there’s money in the business to be able to pay out the insurance claims for people who do unfortunately, pass away. So if somebody were to say, take out an insurance policy, and then, you know, there wasn’t that exclusion there, and then all of a sudden, two months later, or couple of days later, they do have that situation where they have ended their life, and then they make a claim, well, from a commercial side of things, insurers have not received any premiums, which means that there’s this kind of there’s no money in a sense in the pot to kind of pay out to that person.
Now, whilst that might not happen if it was a handful of people. But you know, if we had this, like consistently, lots and lots of people having that done event, and you’re very, very quickly, actually the insurer would probably lose significant sums of money and then not be able to continue to be an insurer within the business itself, we’re just not have sufficient funds. So we do have that in place. But I think, whilst that is the case, and I am saying that is that I also think is important to the insurers don’t want people to be needlessly suffering, you know, they’re not going to be holding people to certain moments, specifically, you have to say, I can’t say forever, and that the moment you know, there isn’t that thing of saying, well, if something like this happens, that we’re going to not pay a crime. Now, the reason I was saying before about how my terminology, you know, it might potentially be a motive with that is that, you know, some people might see assisted dying as suicide. Now, not everybody will. And I will talk a little bit, I can talk a bit about how insurers view this in other areas, because they do have these laws in some countries and how they view it, but just for the purpose of this very initial bit, when we’re chatting, it is important to, to be clear that you know, not everybody sees assisted dying as suicide some people do. But when we’re talking about the insurance policies in the UK at the moment, and then if someone does, in a sense, consider assisted dying to be suicide, then the suicide exclusion only lasts for 12 months of the majority of insurance, life insurance is in the UK.
So if somebody does at some stage, later in life, you know, they’ve got this insurance that they some stage do and develop a terminal illness, they do decide to end their life, then that doesn’t. But that doesn’t mean that the insurer is going to immediately say, Well, no, it was due to this and that we’re not going to pay. And to be very clear, though, with that as well, those that if you are someone who currently has a terminal illness, and I look at some strange there are different kinds of different levels of terminal illnesses when it comes to insurance. You know, some people can have, you know, incurable cancers, and they can sometimes still get these insurances, but a lot of the time for people, if you do have a terminal illness, it is it is quite tricky to get life insurance. But that’s not to say, Don’t ever, you know, they don’t ever offer it, you know, it’s always worthwhile asking, and, but, you know, it wouldn’t be a case of, you know, sort of when I’m saying about these exclusions and everything, you know, if you were very terminally ill in a very, very critical stage, then it is quite likely, unfortunately that there wouldn’t be many options for life insurance at the moment. And so, and this is all as well, I mean, obviously with anything to do with life insurance applications or anything like that, if there is any kind of a hint that you might be having a diagnosis of something or I You’ve already you’ve just been diagnosed with something, I’ve seen your GP and they say, well, actually, we think you might have this need to have these tests. That is something that, again, the majority insurance, especially in the UK, they will be asking about on the insurance application, and the significant majority of the time.
So it is something where we, that’s why we’re always trying to try and get things like this done as quickly as possible, because you just never know what might be around the corner. And unfortunately, and I’m sure many advisors who will be listening, and many underwriters who might be listening, then we’ve all had that experience that, you know, unfortunately, where we have been supporting somebody, and they’ve either just had a diagnosis, or they’ve maybe waited to start the insurance, and then something’s happened. And it’s been unfortunate the insurance can’t go ahead. So in the UK, I’d say there’s no guidance at the moment, in a sense of what would happen in regards to the life insurance in terms of the the UK if there was an assisted dying procedure, because there’s no assisted dying procedures approved here. So at the moment, there’s not needed to be anything specifically written down. And I think we do need to be very conscious, obviously, as I say, at the moment with life insurances, there’s this 12 month suicide exclusion. And again, if you’re listening to this, and, and you, obviously you don’t equate assisted dying to suicide. And I’m sorry, that I’m sort of using that terminology. So it’s just because of the terminology in terms of the insurances where we are now, and where this may sometimes end up in a grey area. So as I say, you know, we wouldn’t be doing anything in terms of, you know, your show, as they do say, No, there’s only that type of suicide exclusion. But there used to be many, many years ago, they would often be, you know, potentially longer, you know, term frames, or maybe they wouldn’t ever pay for suicide.
And there’s some insurances, some policies in the UK now, that would still have that. And what we want to be just conscious of it, I have no idea if we do suddenly get some assisted dying laws passed, and whether or not that could change the way that the current suicide exclusions are viewed on the policies that are set up going forward in the UK. And so let’s have a look at the way that it works elsewhere. So I have be specifically looking at our Canadian counterparts, because that is where assisted dying is allowed. And it sorts through known as their made rules. So that’s medical assistance in dying rules. So there are certain criteria. And I do think is important to say that, you know, there would be it’s just, it’s to be honest, it’s quite interesting, I think, just to know, the way that these kinds of things work, especially with the fact that we asked potentially having these things debated in Scotland, because when we’re talking about UK insurers, you know, they include, you know, obviously Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland’s, all as part of being within their remit, in a sense. So if we did suddenly have some kind of changes in law in a certain part of it, it might potentially influence the way that things are done. Now, whether or not it’s an underwriting claim, I don’t know, I’m certainly obviously I’m not inside an insurer, it might make absolutely no difference whatsoever, but it’s certainly something that would need to be debated, at some point somewhere within that insurance world.
Kathryn Knowles 13:04
So let’s have a look at the way that Canada did it. So in terms of the cystic dying, so there was in March of 17, and 2021, there’s certain criteria, so the person needs to be 18 years or older and have decision making capacity. And there they have to be eligible for publicly funded health care services, which is obviously no different to what we’d have in the UK, but there’s certain tiers, you know, there has to be certain levels select there has to be voluntary request by that person. To do this, you know, they have to make sure feel comfortable that there’s no kind of external pressure have to be you know, there has to be informed consent. There has to be it has to be a very, very serious and incurable illness or disease or disability. And what was quite interesting is that they did have a recent debate in Canada. And they were looking for the moment it exclude actually excludes mental illness from the from the Sci Fi allowable conditions for the consideration of assisted dying. Now, that was debated in March of 2024.
14:08
And you know, as to whether or not they could potentially allow that, and that has actually been, they’ve continued to say that mental illnesses are not are not approved. And that won’t be reassessed again until 2027. And that person has to be in an advanced state of irreversible decline in end capability, and have what’s known as enduring and intolerable physical or psychological suffering. That can’t really be that can’t be alleviated in a sense. So there’s, there are set procedures and safeguards obviously, the reason I’m saying this, because this would, in a sense, be something that if it does have an influence in terms of the insurances in the UK will be something that insurers would need to be kind of looking for and keeping an eye on so, you know, they have to say make sure there’s been no external influence, no coercion And then it’s sort of like a vulnerable person. And what’s interesting as well in Canada is that you don’t actually have to be terminally ill to make the request for the medical assistance and dying. We would usually expect that because as I’ve just been saying, it’s usually and that it’s incurable, that the significant decline and things like that, but but there are sometimes exceptions. But this is a really interesting question, it comes back to me talking about the using the term suicide. So in the Canadian insurance system, what’s interesting is that if somebody does choose to end their life, due to a terminal illness, it’s isn’t classed as suicide.
And I think that’s something that, you know, there’s always going to be huge debate on that you’re gonna have people from from both sides, you know, hopefully lots of people stuck in the middle. But there are going to be people who completely disagree with that, and people who completely agree with that. But this is really important when it comes to the insurances, because as I say, with the this app, 12 months suicide exclusion in the UK life insurance policies, but select for the Canadian counterparts, they don’t class, taking your own life due to a terminal analysis, suicide. So how would that practically work in a sense, if that was, you know, potentially happened here in the UK? Well, we’d have the problem, suicide exclusion, but you know, somebody could take out a policy not be ill in the slightest. And in that 12 months, something might happen, where they’re suddenly diagnosed with maybe potentially a very, very, very fast acting cancer, which means that terminally ill, they might then decide to end their life. But I’d say in Canada, if it was the assisted dying routes, they would not class it as a suicide. So so that kind of brings in you know, that would be that needs to be some kind of, you know, because it’s already starting to be like, it’s different to the way that we work currently, in the UK, there would need to be having that specific conversations. And also, as I said, there is those insurance that in the UK in the products where they do, actually, they have a permanent suicide exclusion. So what be really interesting is it really fits very interestingly, in those insurers and those products access case or if somebody does, and decide when their life due to a terminal illness. And if it was a say specifically, you know, potentially if it was specifically through the assisted dying routes, or maybe even not that, would they classify it as suicide?
Now, I think at the moment, my instinct is that because of that, we don’t have the assisted dying situation, I think that if we have an insurer in the UK that does a permanent suicide, self harm, or suicide exclusion or product that does, My instinct is probably to say that they would class. If someone chose to take their life due to a terminal illness that would they will probably cause that and suicide. So we do need to have that good debate, we need to wonder is that going to be followed? If we do get these sit down here? Is that going to we’re going to follow sort of like Canadian counterparts. And some people might wonder, well, is this going to just increase claims? Well, what’s really interesting again, is if you look at Canada, I do appreciate I’ve not done an extensive worldwide research, it’s, it’s, there’s not many countries obviously, that necessarily have these kinds of rules that are allowable. And it’s not necessarily easy to get lots and lots of data from them. And as I’ve always been very clear, I’m not necessarily a data person, and I can do it but I just prefer to avoid it. So I didn’t want to spend hours upon hours searching through lots of different set of underwriting and claims and things for different countries and different reinsurers and things but when you do look at Canada there’s nothing that’s showing that since the medically assisted dying is coming to place that there’s been a significant jump in life insurance claims and so obviously that because there is there does have to be the set rules to be able to go down the main road and you know, obviously which is the the approved route which we considered that you are that you know that it’s acceptable in a sense that you will be taking this due to the to the level of your health and it’s an interesting one for me as well as the the mental health side because that’s really interesting.
So I think Canada mental health is not covered by made and that does bring in a whole new dynamic to the conversation. And because we do know a certain medical conditions especially physical medical conditions, that for the time being that the there’s no there’s no cure is prolonging at times, but there will be no cure, it might be that the acumen for that associate maybe in a month’s time there will be a cure and maybe something will happen and this person can completely recovered but there are certain conditions where we at the moment and others certain timeframes, and outside most responsive it there are certain timeframes and and where it’s unlikely that people will, will survive for longer than certain timeframe. Obviously, there’s only certain areas that are getting huge amounts of research into them to sort of say, well, if this is happening is that there are certain conditions where there’s maybe not the same amount of focus upon looking at a cure rather than prevention or sort of like slowing the progress of a condition. And mental health becomes a really, really emotive one. Because there’s still this mindset that with mental health, you can get better if you if there’s enough medication, if there’s enough counselling, if there’s enough yoga, if there’s enough walks with your dog, if there’s, you know, if you eat healthy enough, there is this thing to sort of say this, you know, you you can get better. And I think it’s, it’s, it is a very, very topical issue. You know, some people do decide that their mental health means that they just can’t, they just can’t cope with the world, we do see that, obviously, we we’ve all been very, very aware of the amount of suicide rates, you know, there are there are significant amount of people who do do this, unfortunately. And, but this is talking about it, where it’s been kind of like seen as like this is, we actually agree that this person is really at this stage. But you might wonder what happens now, I haven’t been able to sort of like, look into the insurance aspect of that. But in terms of the mental health aspect of it, there’s sometimes are circumstances in some places where mental health can potentially be approved as a sort of medical assistance. So as an example, in Holland, and there have been cases where there’s been what’s known as a physician assisted death for people with mental health conditions, since the 1990s. Now, again, another reason that we have so much difficulty with sort of guessing how that’s going to be assessed, what
Kathryn Knowles 22:06
would be approved, is, as we went through the acceptance criteria early and eligibility factors and must be informed consent, we must make sure that this person isn’t vulnerable. And you know, it’s quite hard because obviously, if someone is terminally ill then in insurance terms and advises him, we would consider that person generally, to be vulnerable, because they are terminally ill. So then it’s a kiss can think of salts, right? Well, what level of vulnerability Are we at? Because we would say vulnerable with a medical professional say vulnerable? Are they vulnerable, you know, to the level of that there can give consent cannot give consent for this kind of, you know, so like assisted dying, is very, very tricky. And with mental health side of things, you know, the, it becomes much more, you know, is there a cognitive kind of ability to to understand, in a sense, what they’re doing? Is it easier for people to do an external influence for somebody with a mental health condition? You know, it’s, it’s really very, very tricky to look at. But looking at this, as I say, in terms of the UK, at the moment, the most life insurance policies that there is the initial 12 and suicide exclusions, but at the way that things stand now, after that 12 month suicide exclusion period, if somebody is terminally ill, if they do go to end their life, then that’s not going to be excluded with a majority of insurers in UK, the majority of products. Because you know, that there’s the moment there is only that 12 month time period, and whilst again, just going back to people might think, Well, yeah, but that’s suicide and assisted dying isn’t suicide, and purely talking from the insurance terminology here and the way that things might be considered, because they say, there’s just no guidance at the moment with us not having that here. But with the debates that are happening, especially within the jurisdictions that UK insurers are covering, and then it does seem like it’s going to be something that is going to need to be discussed at some points.
24:08
But, you know, at the moment, you know, somebody in that situation, if they have a life insurance policy, provided that there isn’t anything in there that says that there is a permanent self harm or suicide exclusion, then it is something that the insurers shouldn’t turn a claim down for, and vice versa, decreasing shouldn’t because they shouldn’t, and insurers do pay out, you know, significant amounts of life insurance. And but, you know, sometimes, you know, we can have moments, I say it that way in terms of claims and things like that. But, you know, overall, if you’ve got a life insurance policy in the UK, you become terminally ill. Obviously, when you did your application you accepted everything was completely truthful on the application, then the insurance policy will continue to cover you. Obviously hope Everybody would hope that, you know, in many ways that you would continue to be able to live as long as possible. And, but ultimately, if if you make a decision about your situation, then you know, the the life insurance rules at this moment, should the majority of insurance shouldn’t prevent a claim. Now, in regards to if this is the end of the episode, it’s not gonna be a long one, because you know, there isn’t huge, huge amounts that we can discuss, because they say we don’t have any of the case studies in the UK, but I just felt it was important to cover it. And if you haven’t listened to this, if you are feeling unsettled at all, if you’re unsure about anything that’s been discussed, how you’re feeling or someone you might know and how they’re feeling, if you do have life insurance in place, or any other kind of protection policy, do bear in mind, there are other value added benefits that come along with these policies now, which usually, at the very least, include some kind of mental health support.
So you can always bring up and just say to them, you know, that I don’t know that you’ve listened to, to something about assisted suicide, assisted suicide, assisted dying, see, I’m getting my words on myself, do apologise, assisted dying. And, you know, it’s, you know, you just wanna have a chat with somebody. You do have things like the Samaritans as well there’s mind there’s also a grief chat so not everybody wants to talk to someone grief chat is a it’s a brilliant company, we had them on once as a as a guest on the podcast where you can basically go on their website and do a web chat with somebody and again, they are trained counsellor, they can provide you some support, you know, it’s it’s not you know, it’s all very anonymous and things like that. So you can just say how you feeling and somebody or message back to you consents work quite well if you’re working and you may be needing to, to do multiple things at once. You can’t be on the phone with someone or even if you don’t feel like you want to talk to somebody about it. Sometimes that can be the case too. Not everyone feels comfortable chatting. Okay then thank you for listening everybody and I hope that it’s been an OK episode as I say it is one where it was kind of I was debating whether or not to do it or not imagine it’s so there’s gonna be lots of opinions about things and he said, I really hope that I’ve just given a factual accounts of the way the UK market works, what we’re seeing in other countries and and how that might be a consideration for the UK going forward. Next time, I’m going to be focusing on arranging protection insurance when we have things like IHT planning. So when we have some inheritance tax things going on, how would we be planning it some tidbits on some of the big do’s and some of the big don’ts when it comes to arranging that kind of cover. As always, you can listen to the podcasts, I’m not streaming platforms, you can visit the website practical hyphen protection dot code at UK. And on the website, you can access your CPD certificate if it’s something that you’ve been listening to in regards to your work, and that’s thanks to our sponsors, the Octomembers. Thank you very much, everybody, and take care. Bye
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