생명보험약관상 자살 면·부책 조항에 대한 검토

By the section 659 of the Commercial law, the insurer does not have to pay in case an insured person commits a suicide. However, despite of this section, the life insurance policies state if the insured commits a suicide due to his insanity or after 2 years from the commence- ment of the coverage, the insurer has to pay the insurance money. In this article, it discusses the suicide clauses in life insurance policies. First, it reviews the "suicide after the time period that is specified" through some cases and concludes that it is justifiable to pay the insurance payment which falls into "causes except accident" if the person commits a suicide after the period that is specified. Secondly, if a person commits suicide due to his insanity, he is not subject to the accidental death benefit. It is because even if there is no intent to commit a suicide, he did not die from any "external causes" which is the requisite of "accident". Also, in Jan. 2010, the Financial Supervisory Service amended the life insurance polices and states that the insurer has to pay the accidental death benefit for the deaths caused by insanity. There are issues to be discussed and there needs to be lots of studies and need to be improved.