Common knowledge usually tells people that their life insurance policy likely has a lot of exclusions that prevent it from paying out. The most well known of these are the "suicide clause" and clauses for dangerous activities like mountain climbing or parachuting.
The reality is that in the past decade or so, those types of exclusions have become less common. Most policies being issued in the past few years, say underwriters, have only one common exclusion: the 30-day rule which prevents payout on the policy if the death occurs within 30 days of the policy's inception.
That rule is to prevent fraud, but today, even suicide is not often included as something that will negate a payout. There may be a time limit - often the policy must be in force for a year or more before suicide is no longer a reason not to pay benefits.
Quite often, those who engage in dangerous sports or hobbies are not necessarily going to find themselves excluded from a policy. Many life insurers never even ask about these as they just spread those risks demographically.
So the next time you talk life insurance, ask about exclusions. You may be surprised to find that there really aren't any anymore.
