Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Insurance topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Committee advances bill to bar group-life exclusions for active-duty deaths
Summary
The Full House Insurance Committee voted to approve Senate Bill 109, sponsored by Senator Harbison, a bill that would bar group life insurance policies from containing provisions that exclude or restrict liability for deaths occurring while an insured is an active-duty member of the United States Armed Forces except where the death results from war, declared or undeclared, or hazards of war.
The Full House Insurance Committee voted to approve Senate Bill 109, sponsored by Senator Harbison, a bill that would bar group life insurance policies from containing provisions that exclude or restrict liability for deaths occurring while an insured is an active-duty member of the United States Armed Forces except where the death results from war, declared or undeclared, or hazards of war.
Senator Harbison said the bill grew out of a constituent complaint and meetings with the state insurance commissioner. "The commission was very, very outraged by it," Harbison said, describing the family's repeated tragedies and his view that the policy refusal was unjust.
The bill as explained by Harbison would change how group life policies may be delivered or issued in the state: current law already bars some life insurance exclusions but, according to the sponsor, did not apply to group life coverage. Harbison said the version before the committee is a department bill filed at the request of the insurance commissioner.
Committee members asked no substantive technical questions on the policy language during the hearing, and there were no public speakers. Representative Hughley moved that the committee report the bill favorably; a second was recorded but the second's name was not specified in the transcript. The motion passed by voice vote; no roll-call tally was given.
The committee record shows the sponsor, Harbison, worked with the insurance commissioner to prepare the bill and characterized the legislation as intended to prevent similar denials in future cases. The transcript contains no statutory citation for the existing law the sponsor referenced, and the bill’s formal language and cross‑references are in the legislative file labeled in committee as LC461164SSCS.
If the bill becomes law as described in committee, it would restrict insurers from issuing group life policies in the state that exclude coverage for active-duty service members’ deaths except for the limited war-related exception described by the sponsor.
