Do life insurance rules that deny payment after suicide discriminate against those with mental health issues? If those rules didn't exist would suicide rate increase?
Is the discrimination worth it as a deterrent? Or is it just to save the instance companies $$$?
Discrimination is the insurance industry's entire business model.
Discrimination as a word doesn't mean a bad thing, it literally just means "to choose between 2 or more of something/someone". As long as there is choice, there is discrimination. If I needed a plumber, and two people wanted the job, I would discriminate against the one without a plumber's license and/or experience. I think that's probably sensible discrimination.
These days discrimination is used to imply some form of social harm, especially towards a marginalised community, and the word "against" frequently follows it. The question really is though: Is an act of discrimination harmful or not, to whom it is harmful, and do the harms outweigh the benefits?
Is the insurance industry's decision to choose prices for people based on their medical situations harmful discrimination? For the customers? Definitely. For the insurance company? Definitely not.
And then the choice really boils down to which of the two you think are more valuable, for whatever it is you value most. People, or insurance companies?
As someone who values less suffering in the world and thinks all people are worthy of dignity, safety and equitable experiences, and huge profits for a private business are not constructive in delivering those values, profit-seeking health and life insurance companies can burn to the ground for all I care. Bankrupting people for things they didn't choose causes far too much suffering in this world.
Stress drives people to suicide in the first place, and insurance companies feed on that to live like social parasites.
I was at a management training and HR was covering protected classes of people. They asked if it was ever ok to discriminate when hiring. I thought it was a trick question, and said yes. Everyone was shocked because they were expecting me to say something racist. I said it's perfectly fine to discriminate against someone with no work history, bad references, multiple jobs in a very short time etc.
Moment of silence and then they say: "No. It is NEVER ok to discriminate."
Fucking morons.
As a fairly logic/science based thinker, it’s so frustrating seeing people drop all nuance and detail from their knowledge. And then they pass it on, judge others by their “knowledge” and it just keeps spreading. Eventually the general public knows that an elephant has a trunk, but will scorn you if you say it also has a tail.
From a dictionary perspective, you're right. From a business legal risk-avoidant and financial self-protection perspective, you're dead wrong. Words are often used with a context-specific definition, and you're not supposed to use the word 'discrimination' at all in a workplace. Because it will cause the legal and HR departments more work, and therefore cost the organisation more.
Just let the HR rep do the script and teach you how to avoid accountability when prioritising profit over people. It's less painful that way.
The whole point of the “protected class” is that you may not discriminate using those criteria. The corollary is that you may discriminate using other criteria. Otherwise, there would be no point in creating a “protected class”.
Not to take away from your main point at the end, but that's just not what discrimination means. Discrimination in this context isn't just making a decision between choices, it's when that decision is made unjustly or based on prejudice.
So yes, it's wrong to put profits ahead of people's well-being. But the question was whether insurance companies' policies to not pay out for causes of death that are strongly correlated with poor mental health unjustly treat people with mental health issues.
To be honest, I think that's an interesting point, because while I similarly find the whole concept of health and life insurance abhorrent, I think these policies are in place so people don't take their own lives for the sake of the insurance money for their loved ones. In that respect, they may save a handful of lives, and you could argue that makes it a just policy. I'm not sure I 100% buy that argument either, I just think there's more to the question than just whether insurance companies are generally moral.
I agree that the 'unjust' part is implied here. However, it is certainly not part of any textbook definition of discrimination.
Because the 'unjust' part is implied so often, people have started to change the meaning of the word discrimination. I think that is quite dangerous, given how essential the word is in various constitutions and laws.
Not gonna lie, you had me in the first half.
Just because I loathe systems such as capitalism that reward antisocial and exploitative behaviours, it doesn't mean I can't have a nuanced take on language history and use. 😉
People don't understand how expensive having a disability is, and all the little ways it messes with your existence beyond the medical symptoms themselves. It creates additional unnecessary stress and suffering. Like, just for a small insurance example, only being able to find one expensive insurance company willing to sell you travel insurance for a work trip and having to negotiate that with your employer's HR department. Lucky I found that one company at all, I guess.
Life insurance is basically a bet on how long a person will live, structured in a way to give a payout to a deceased person's survivors. Depending on how long the person lives, the payout may be larger or smaller than the total amount of payments the person has made to the insurer.
(If the payout is smaller than the total you paid in, your heirs would be better off if you'd stuck that money under your mattress, or in a savings account, or municipal bonds or something.)
Suppose you're the insurer. You are, in effect, a professional gambler. You are in the business of making bets and, in the long term, making money by making good bets.
If you're in the business of making bets, you don't make a bet with someone for whom it's not a bet but a sure thing. Professional gamblers don't play Find-the-Lady games.
In the case of life insurance, the insurer expects that the covered person intends to keep living. They may die soon due to an accident or unexpected sudden illness, but they themselves would prefer not to.
A person who already plans to commit suicide at the time they take out the life insurance policy, doesn't fit that profile. To them it's not a bet, it's a sure thing. There's no chance there. They may be doing it out of desperation ... but to the insurer's side of the deal, it's still a bad bet.
And since the insurer decides what policies they will write, they get to decide not to take that bet.
It's not a deterant against suicide, it's to stop suicidal people taking out life insurance to give their loved ones a pay off before they top themselves.
Insurance is a bet between Client and Insurer that the client will pay more in before the insurer has to pay out.
I don't think it's meant as a suicide deterrent, but about saving the insurance companies money.
It's to prevent fraud by taking out a huge policy and then killing yourself. However, as others have said, it's limited to 2 years. You can still take out a huge policy and kill yourself, but you have to pay into it for 2 years first.
Idk but I couldn't get a life insurance policy for my husband because he is bipolar. They flat out denied him.
Most policies limit it to two years after policy inception for the suicide exemption iirc. That probably keeps them legally kosher with regards to discrimination.
The whole point of insurances is discrimination.
You raise a good question, but here's the thing.
In Australia discrimination may be unlawful if it pertains to:
age
disability, or
race, including colour, national or ethnic origin or immigrant status
sex, pregnancy, marital or relationship status, family responsibilities or breastfeeding
sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status.
religion, political opinion, national extraction, nationality, social origin, medical record, criminal record or trade union activity.
The kicker here is - insurance companies are allowed to -- that's how their business works.
Interest question. I would guess (with no scientific evidence) that it wouldn’t have a significant impact but that is only a guess.
It's only there to save money. Otherwise they would see themselves as being defrauded if people bought life insurance policies for 2 months and then jumped off a bridge to get money for their family- their rate-of-return calculations don't like that.
Remember. Insurance companies are not in the business of protecting clients, they are in the business of extracting monthly payments. Everything they do, every bit of inane crazy backwards bureaucracy they build, is EXCLUSIVELY to maximize incoming payments while minimizing payouts. This applies to car, home, life, health, and every other form of insurance out there. And life insurance is one of the most loosely regulated types (aka, the worst). Yes its technically discrimination, but they couldn't give a rats ass about anyone killing themselves, since it isn't a legally protected class they only care about not paying for it.
In some places insurance companies have rules and regulations to follow, so everyone’s experience will be different.
Dang that must be nice
I don't think it is discrimination, fraud prevention maybe? in a very loose sense of fraud.
When you enter a insurance contract you agree to pay x amount until you die or you cancel the contract. By getting the contract then passing away you prevent the income the insurance company needs to keep its house of cards afloat.
People would have incentive to kill the insured and pass it off as suicide.
You make it sound like they cannot make them fall of a mountain or some other "accident" already.
Well, the more options. The easier it will be to defraud insurance.
Little column A, little column B
A life insurance policy doesn't have to pay out if you take out the policy AND commit suicide in a short period of time. If it's after that period of time the policy MUST pay out. That is law. Former life insurance salesman here.
So since it is a relatively short period of time, it's say it shouldn't have any real change in suicide rates
Let's say your mental health issues has been known before you took out the policy, would that affect the payout regardless of time between taking it and the suicide?
Would they even underwrite the policy?
Wouldn’t affect the payout, but it would increase your premium.
I didn't realize there was a time limit on the non-payout. That's good to know. Friend of a friend just took his life and I've been worried about the kids. Hopefully they will be taken care of.
Typically the limit is 2 years.