Double indemnity

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the life insurance clause. For the 1944 film noir, see Double Indemnity.

Double Indemnity is a clause or provision in a life insurance or accident policy whereby the company agrees to pay twice the face of the contract in cases of accidental death. An accidental death is a death that is neither intentionally caused by a human being, like homicide, nor foreseeable, like cancer. After an accident, if injury related death does not occur within a three month window, most policies will not pay out.^{[citation needed]}

In 2004, 4.67% (112,012 of 1,397,615) of all deaths were declared accidental.[1] For this reason, double indemnity clauses are usually relatively cheap and often aggressively marketed, especially to people over 45. Children and people in dangerous jobs, like heavy construction, are the exceptions.[2]