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Suicide and life insurance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

T. J. O'Grady
Affiliation:
Deliberate Self Harm Team, The Peter Hodgkinson Centre, County Hospital, Lincoln LN2 5QY
R. Naik
Affiliation:
Deliberate Self Harm Team, The Peter Hodgkinson Centre, County Hospital, Lincoln LN2 5QY
E. Butterworth
Affiliation:
Deliberate Self Harm Team, The Peter Hodgkinson Centre, County Hospital, Lincoln LN2 5QY
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In the study of suicide little attention has been paid to the role of life insurance. One might suppose that ‘deliberately accelerating the event insured against’ by homicide or suicide would void a policy. One might also predict that changes in attitude towards suicide, so that it is increasingly regarded as a medico-social problem rather than a criminal act, would be reflected in a softening of attitude among insurers. On the other hand, recent epidemiological changes, such as the increased suicide rate among young males, could make companies reluctant to relax their policy conditions.

Type
Articles
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1990

References

Barraclough, B. M., Bunch, J., Nelson, B. & Sainsbury, P. (1974) A hundred cases of suicide. British Journal of Psychiatry, 125, 355373.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mohanna, M. (1989) The medicalisation of suicide in 19th century Britain. Abstracts: Autumn Meeting of Royal College of Psychiatrists 1989. Google Scholar
Westcott, W. W. (1885) Suicide. London: H.K. Lewis.Google Scholar
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