Denied Life Insurance Policy Attorney in Tampa, FL - YouTube

Hello, my name is Ted Corless, and I’m here to talk to you today about an especially sensitive

issue: that’s the denial of a life insurance policy when the individual deceased is being

accused of committing suicide.

You know, during the 20 years I’ve been practicing law, both in the state of Florida and the

Tampa Bay area and in Kansas City, Missouri when I started out back in 1995, I learned

that being a lawyer requires a certain degree of toughness.

But, at the same time, you are often put into situations where you are dealing with the

exceptionally vulnerable people of America.

People who have either been injured or who have suffered because of a major event in

their life where legal counsel is now required.

One of the most sensitive cases I’ve ever handled involved an individual family who

had a life insurance policy denied because of allegations the individual who died had

committed suicide.

Now, this isn’t a case I’m working on right now, but these things happen with some

regularity.

And it’s not so much cases where it’s obvious the individual committed suicide,

where they’ve left or note or there had been some sort of suicidal ideation made

prior to the actual death, I’m talking about a situation where an individual dies under

what appears to be suspicious circumstances.

There is no note, and there’s a dispute between the insurance company and the individual

family now who needs the benefits of that life insurance policy, but that claim has

been denied because there’s been some interpretation that the cause of injury was intentional.

Understand something: if there were in fact suspicious circumstances surrounding the death

of your loved one, the medical examiner would have been obligated to perform some kind of

autopsy, or what is referred to in the trades as a post.

Well, the reality is is that medical examiners are only looking at the information that has

been provided to them and could be accessible by a physical examination of the body.

But, at the same time, the medical examiner will oftentimes provide an opinion about whether

or not they believe this particular injury was intentional.

The most common way for this to happen would be somebody who accidentally took too much

medication and then died because of a consequence of it, or where there was an interaction in

medication, or maybe an individual who, after an emotional moment, was seen driving quickly

in an automobile.

The thing I want you to understand about medical examiners is when they say something is suicide,

they’re saying something different than perhaps you or I would interpret as an intentional

act.

Instead, a medical examiner can call something intentional simply because an individual provided

some piece of the puzzle, some conduct or act, that ultimately led to their individual

death.

The thing I want you to know that’s the most important is that individual decisions

about whether a death is suicide for purposes of a life insurance policy can involve the

decisions of the medical examiner, but the findings of the medical examiner are never

considered absolute or final.

Instead, before an insurance company denies a life insurance policy, they must conduct

their own investigation, and that should include things such as interviewing family members,

reviewing the medical examiner’s report, but also gaining access to all of the medical

records of the individual who has died so that we can have a complete evaluation as

to what the intent of the individual was prior to their death because the issue of intent

will ultimately be decided by a jury of the individual’s peers.

If your family has suffered as a result of an insurance company denying a life insurance

policy for any reason, please go to our website at www.CorlessBarfield.com to learn more, or give us a call so that we can meet and

talk about what options you may have.

I look forward to hearing from you.

http://www.corlessbarfield.com/ Free Consultation 813-258-4998