Who determines if a questionable death is suicide?

Ultimately, it will be up to the courts to decide and rule if the death is a suicide or not.

The first one who will decide will be the medical examiner who will issue a death certificate, which is an official document that also contains the cause of death of the person. Based on the evidence collected, the medical examiner can provide an opinion as to whether the death was caused by suicide.

The death certificate is then submitted when the beneficiaries make a claim against the life insurance policy of the insured. The contents of the death certificated can also be corroborated by police reports and write-ups of the investigations.

When the insurance company receives the claim, it will make its own investigation and due diligence before they will write up a check as payment for the death benefit. It will look into the documents you submit and may hire a claims adjuster to check the veracity of the claim. After all, the insurance company may have to pay a lot of money in death claims and they would naturally want to check that the claim being made is payable under the contract they have with the insured.

They may also dispute the claim, especially if it falls within the two-year waiting period. In this case, they may refuse to pay the death benefit on the grounds that

• the death resulted from a suicide
• the insured did not disclose something that was material to the policy or would have resulted in the rejection of the insurance application
• the insured violated the terms of the policy
• the cause of death falls under the exclusions specified in the policy

When the life insurance company denies the claim, you as the claimant can then contest this claim. You can file a complaint with the Insurance Commission. If things are not settle between you and the insurance company, it may escalate at such a point that the court will decide whether the claim is payable or not.

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