House Insurance Committee reports favorably on Rep. Rip Jordan’s bill limiting suicide exclusions in life insurance
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Summary
The House Insurance Committee on April 14 reported House Bill 1180 favorably. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Rip Jordan, would limit insurers’ ability to deny life-insurance benefits after a suicide, clarify a common two-year waiting period, and create exceptions for policies covering minors or college-age beneficiaries; committee members asked for clearer mental-health and age-language before floor action.
BATON ROUGE — The House Insurance Committee on Tuesday voted to report House Bill 1180 favorably after a discussion about narrowing insurers’ ability to deny life-insurance benefits following suicide and how to handle common waiting periods for newly issued policies.
Rep. Rip Jordan, the bill’s sponsor, told the committee he has chaired a task force on suicide prevention for four years and that the group found underreporting of suicides at colleges and among adolescents. “They think that they’re helping the families of these kids by not reporting it as a suicide because they feel like… the parents won’t be able to collect on the life insurance,” Jordan said, arguing HB 1180 would reduce that reporting disincentive and the stigma around suicide.
Doctor Johnson read the bill into the record, saying the measure would “prohibit the denial of life insurance benefits following suicide,” establish limits on suicide exclusions, require notice, and provide related provisions.
Jordan acknowledged most life policies already contain a two-year waiting period that can bar payouts if the insured dies by suicide soon after purchase. He said HB 1180 would preserve the typical two-year waiting period for most policies but carve out protections for minors and potentially college-age beneficiaries covered under a parent’s policy. “I can’t reasonably foresee a situation where a parent would knowingly buy a policy in the hopes that their child would complete suicide,” Jordan said, explaining the rationale for an exception.
Chairman Furman pressed for clarity on paragraph D, which the bill ties to suicides that “result from a diagnosed mental health condition,” asking whether the committee should require a clinical diagnosis to trigger the protection. Jordan responded that the diagnosed-mental-health provision would apply within the two-year window and offered to work with members to tighten or define which mental-health conditions would be covered if that language proves problematic.
Rep. Gorrioso said she supported the bill’s goals but urged clearer drafting. “I think the way the bill is set up, I think you can probably just delete D and still have the same effect that you’re intending,” she said, and recommended rewording subsection G to ensure a policy issued to a parent that covers a child is not inadvertently left subject to the waiting period. She also asked whether the two-year waiting period is an industry standard; Jordan said it generally is and that he had discussed the issue with industry representatives.
Gorrioso suggested the sponsor consider wording that would extend protections to individuals covered by a parent’s policy through age 26 to encompass college-age beneficiaries; Jordan agreed to work on language to capture that cohort.
After discussion and Jordan’s commitment to consult with stakeholders and refine the bill’s language, Chairman Furman moved to report HB 1180 favorably. With no objections raised, the committee reported the bill favorably out of committee.
The committee did not record a roll-call vote on the motion or list individual yea/nay votes in the transcript. The committee adjourned and will resume work the following day at 9:00 a.m.
