M.D. Fla: If you kill someone in self defense, can you still collect on their life insurance policy?

Stephenson v. Prudential Ins. Co. of Am., 2016 WL 6568085 (M.D. Fla. Nov. 4, 2016) If you murder someone, you can’t collect on their life insurance policy. This is one of several iterations of the common-law “slayer rule” that’s codified in F.S. 732.802; a statute that gets litigated way more often than most people would guess (see here, here, here). But just because you kill someone doesn’t mean our slayer statute gets triggered. The killing has to be both “intentional” and “unlawful”. F.S. 732.802(3): “A named beneficiary of a bond, life insurance policy, or other contractual arrangement who unlawfully and intentionally kills the principal obligee or the person upon whose life the policy is issued is not entitled to any benefit under the bond, policy, or other contractual arrangement; and it becomes payable as though the killer had predeceased the decedent.” And just because you “intentionally”…

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