Utah transplant surgeon dies in ski accident

[Tim]

It is actually highly unlikely there was life insurance which will apply... the vast majority will not cover extreme sports, and many that will are almost unaffordable. Just like a DUI crash or other things, the basic blanket group insurance policy from the hospital will exclude people who do those activities. Also, it will have clauses where the group plan can be voided or greatly reduced due to an individual's dangerous outlier activity leading to demise and the insured person or group having signed that they do not do these things or won't get a payout if the fatal activities were illegal or outlier risks.

In a high number of these cases, any life insurance payout is voided by one means or another (or at least it could be... since the person lied in their policy papers to quality or reduce their premiums, and signed that they didn't do the high risk activities, substances, etc that are exactly what lead to death). There is a very high probability that if this guy had a family, they will be on gofundme and not getting significant indemnity from any life insurance the departed held on himself.

I see a ton of these cases and have been pressured occasionally by families in the ICU to omit details of the activity which caused the death (intoxicated, on drugs, extreme hazard activity, suicide vs crime, etc). I play dumb and just document objectively... as if it's not in the ER and paramedic reports anyways. What is actually a lot more common is that a small fraction of the policy amount is given... basically just as a PR move by the insurer to avoid public shaming for shafting the widow/widower (even if they could have paid zero, it is worth it for them to maybe give 100k instead of 1M policy to avoid bad headlines). They have to sign NDA to get the token payments (often in installments).

This is stuff the gleeful insurance salesmen won't exactly offer up front when they are trying to score a commission, lol.

https://www.lifeinsurance.org/blog/c...nce-exclusions

Skiing Is not considered a life threatening event.
As far as the disclosures, misrepresention and negligence is a different issue. Unless it was under the suicide clause. A policy would be paid, but by who would be the question. Even a beginner would be paid out. Insurance company or the resort under negligence. That would be insurance company vs resort. Not the individual.
This situation was not an extreme sport subject to disclosure.

[MaxPower]

These sad stories are fortunately few and far between, which is probably why we remember them. My former practice manager retired at the end of 2021. Her husband died 4 days later. I’m sure that’s not the retirement either of them had dreamed of. To me, these kinds of stories remind me to enjoy the present, but not at the expense of sacrificing my future, or the future of my wife and kids.

I have a savings goal each year, and when I’m on track to hit that I don’t obsess about the other stuff. I’m not in the extreme MMM savings category, but I usually hit between 25-30% pre-tax into retirement savings. We’ve definitely expanded our lifestyle in the last year or so—country club membership, several big vacations, etc. Definitely have to do all things in moderation.