A Study On Suicide Clauses In Life Insuranc

With the rapid socio-economic development in China,suicide is gradually evolving into a serious social problem.In this paper,on the basis of explaining the basic theory of suicide clause,we will elaborate and argue some special cases and put forward some legislative suggestions to reduce related insurance disputes.This paper takes the suicide clause of life insurance as the main object of study,starting from the basic theory,and discusses that the purpose of the establishment of the suicide clause is to delineate a legal period of time as a balance between the interests of life insurance beneficiaries or family members and the insurer,and the legal effect of the exclusion period is to avoid the phenomenon of insurance fraud.The establishment of the exclusion clause,to a certain extent,achieves the balance of interests between the insurer and the beneficiary,maintains social justice and avoids moral hazard,which is a major innovation in insurance theory.The insurance contracts to which the suicide clause applies are mainly long-term life insurance contracts,most of which have "death" as the benefit condition,and that is why the suicide clause has room for application.At the same time,it is applicable to the insured with certain capacity,and his suicide should be independent and free will.The exclusion period of the suicide clause is two years from the establishment of the insurance contract,while China’s insurance law also provides that after the reinstatement of the insurance contract,the exclusion period is recalculated,but from the relevant provisions of the Insurance Law,Articles 36 and 37 provide for "suspension of effect",the so-called The so-called "suspension" refers to the temporary cessation of the contract effect,and cannot be considered as the termination of the effect,so the reinstatement after the suspension of the contract should also be considered as the continuation of the contract effect,so the provision of recalculating the exclusion period seems to lead to the wrong logic of the law itself.At the same time,although the insurance law has made a lot of progress after the amendment,there are still many shortcomings,first of all,the scope of application of the exclusion clause about suicide,after the introduction of the Civil Code,the scope for the incapacitated person has been expanded,but the specific application to the Insurance Law can still see many problems,"identify their own behavior " How to understand,for the cognition of death should be specifically divided into how old,at the same time to consider the unity of the law,the division of the criminal law for minors on the cognition of the right to life age and the definition of the insurance law should be consistent,there are also patients with mental disorders whether the definition of the application of suicide provisions,should be cognizant of the fact that some people although the death of their own choice but It should be recognized that some people choose to die on their own but not for the purpose of obtaining insurance money,so it seems inappropriate to apply the exclusion clause to them.Secondly,the insurance contract reinstatement provision,although China’s Insurance Law seems to regard the reinstatement of the insurance contract as the conclusion of a new contract in the provisions on the commencement of the exclusion period,but from the logic of the legal text,the reinstatement effect brought about by the suspension should be the continuation of the original contract with suspended effect rather than the commencement of the contract.From the point of view of comparative law,there are few countries where the period of exclusion in the suicide clause is recalculated after the reinstatement of the insurance contract as a matter of legislation.Finally,there is a gap in our Insurance Law regarding the burden of proof,and because of the lack of a mechanism to identify death in China,there is no professional who can make a determination,which often leads to a lay judge to determine whether a specific fact is a suicide through the relevant materials.