X-Message-Number: 8870
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 1997 08:21:49 -0700
From: David Brandt-Erichsen <>
Subject: Oregon update (insurance)

From the SEATTLE TIMES
(Sunday Nov 29/97; Final; page A18)
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        OREGON INSURANCE FIRMS LIKELY TO PAY IN ASSISTED-SUICIDE CASES

        SALEM, Ore. - Insurers likely will pay benefits to a patient's
        heirs or estate if the patient commits physician-aided suicide
        under Oregon's law and has not used the policy to try to defraud
        the insurance company.

        Most insurance companies have policies honoring doctor- assisted
        suicide that apply to long-term policyholders or those who just
        bought a policy and then developed a terminal illness.

        "Where we have a well-defined law in place, a legitimized means
        for ending one's life, then we will honor it," said Debbie Smith,
        a spokeswoman for State Farm Insurance in Salem.

        The law, originally passed by voters in 1994, safeguards life
        insurance held by dying patients.

        "It would be a tremendous injustice to deprive that person of
        insurance benefits," said Eli Stutsman, a Portland lawyer for
        Oregon Right to Die.

        "This isn't like someone committing an irrational suicide
        expecting a new policy to provide benefits. This is a patient who
        is already dying, and it's a matter of whether they die today or
        in two weeks."

        Insurance companies generally will even honor life-insurance
        policies purchased by people who, after purchasing the policy,
        discover they are terminally ill and decide to hasten their death
        under the law.

        This situation would be rare, most insurance officials said,
        because people qualified to end their lives under Oregon's law are
        likely to be older people who bought insurance long before they
        became sick.

        "This probably won't affect us at all," said John Mangan, a
        spokesman for Standard Insurance of Portland. "In reality, most
        people who buy a life-insurance contract are reasonably healthy
        and not terminally ill."

        However, insurance companies have the right to contest an
        individually held policy within the first two years if the company
        suspects a person lied or concealed something at the time of
        purchase.

        A policy would not pay benefits if it is discovered that the
        purchaser lied about a terminal health condition.

        Most life-insurance policies for individuals also will not pay
        benefits if the policyholder commits suicide - suicide not
        protected under the new law - within the initial two years.

        "This is insurance against untimely death, not a deliberate
        suicide," Mangan said. "In that case, it was sold under false
        pretenses; in essence that person has defrauded the company."

        However, insurance companies will honor dying patients who hasten
        death under Oregon's new law, as long as they obtained the policy
        fairly.

        If the company could prove the person concealed a terminal illness
        when purchasing a life-insurance policy and then committed
        assisted suicide , the company would have a case for withholding
        benefits.

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