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) --------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=8870