Suicide exclusion in life insurance
A rule that voids death cover if the insured takes their own life in the first year of the policy, then requires suicide to be covered: a waiting period against adverse selection, not a permanent exclusion.
Death cover must guard against an extreme form of adverse selection: a policy bought by someone who has already decided to end their life. In France, Article L. 132-7 of the Insurance Code solves this with a waiting period rather than an exclusion: the cover is void if the insured dies by suicide in the first year, but must cover that risk afterward, and any contrary clause is deemed unwritten. When cover is increased, the period starts again for the additional amount. The provision targets death insurance; it does not apply to personal accident cover, whose very condition is that death be accidental. The distinction matters in protection products, where a death benefit and an accident benefit often sit side by side.
Article 80 of Law No. 98-546 of July 2, 1998 cut the statutory suicide exclusion period from two years to one. In a ruling of February 9, 2023 (No. 21-17.681), the second civil chamber of France's highest court overturned a Grenoble appeals court decision of April 6, 2021, holding that the provision does not apply to a personal accident policy taken out in 2003: unless the contract says otherwise, suicide is not covered under it.
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