Josh Powell just blew up his house with his kids inside

[old_gregg]

what a bunch of freaking vultures: siblings of josh powell seeking $3.5mm of susan and her boys' life insurance proceeds

[Sullyute]

what a bunch of freaking vultures: siblings of josh powell seeking $3.5mm of susan and her boys' life insurance proceeds

Technically (according to the article) they are entitled to it. Josh Powell changed the beneficiary from himself to his siblings. It is the Cox family that is fighting it.

That is a lot of money in life insurance. I am surprised that they had that much.

[The_Douger]

Josh Powell's family deserves none of that.

[old_gregg]

Technically (according to the article) they are entitled to it. Josh Powell changed the beneficiary from himself to his siblings. It is the Cox family that is fighting it.

That is a lot of money in life insurance. I am surprised that they had that much.

ah, that wasn't originally in the article. it makes it less egregious that they're not suing for it, but it's still pretty sickening.

[RC Vikings]

Technically (according to the article) they are entitled to it. Josh Powell changed the beneficiary from himself to his siblings. It is the Cox family that is fighting it.

That is a lot of money in life insurance. I am surprised that they had that much.

Who takes out life insurance on their kids?

[Surfah]

Who takes out life insurance on their kids?

Me. $10k each, basically to cover funeral expenses should something terrible happen.

[YOhio]

Me. $10k each, basically to cover funeral expenses should something terrible happen.

Same.

[Clark Addison]

Me. $10k each, basically to cover funeral expenses should something terrible happen.

Me too. Same amount. It costs about 50 cents a month through work.

For my wife, on the other hand, I have $25,000, since I'll be needing some dating money.

[FMCoug]

I met a guy the other day who claimed to have been Josh Powell's best friend growing up. Said he had to leave the state to work for about 3 months because he mistakenly spoke to the media. And that he could "write a book" and has been offered 500K to do so based on stuff he knows that the cops or the true crime writer currently writing one doesn't.

Could be FOS but it was interesting nonetheless.

[Sullyute]

Who takes out life insurance on their kids?

I think that it is relatively common (and inexpensive) to take out a small amount of life insurance on children in order to cover funeral expeneses, etc in the case of death. My work offers it on my dependants. But it would usually be less than $10,000. A million dollar policy seems suspicious.

[The_Douger]

Me. $10k each, basically to cover funeral expenses should something terrible happen.

I do as well.

That said, it's become pretty clear the Powell's are a pretty disgraceful, ridiculous bunch.

[Indy Coug]

Technically (according to the article) they are entitled to it. Josh Powell changed the beneficiary from himself to his siblings. It is the Cox family that is fighting it.

That is a lot of money in life insurance. I am surprised that they had that much.

I'm curious how much Josh had on each life. I don't have a lot of experience with juvenile insurance (ages 0 to 18), but I think you'd be hard pressed to get coverage in excess of $100K because their deaths simply would not represent that much of a financial loss nor would their funeral expenses be that high.

If Susan worked, he might have been able to get a large amount of coverage, depending on various factors, but $3M is probably pushing it.

Typically underwriters do both health and financial underwriting because they aren't going to issue a $100M policy on someone that makes $25K a year, even assuming they actually had the money on hand to pay the premiums. I'm wondering if he got a bunch of smaller policies with multiple insurers and managed to keep under their radar in terms of his total insurance on their lives. Again, I'm not clear on what insurers do to mitigate that kind of "overinsured" risk.

As for whether the Cox's can contest the payout to the beneficiaries, I think they are SOL on that one.

[il Padrino Ute]

Powell's sibling deserve nothing, even if they are the beneficiaries because their brother is a lying, homicidal POS.

A question - can a life insurance company deny payment to the beneficiaries if the deaths were the result of murder by the one who bought the policy?

[The_Douger]

You'd think they could considering the suspicious circumstances surrounding her disappearance.

I'd even think that since a body has never been found, the insurance company could say they're not sure she's dead.

[Indy Coug]

Powell's sibling deserve nothing, even if they are the beneficiaries because their brother is a lying, homicidal POS.

A question - can a life insurance company deny payment to the beneficiaries if the deaths were the result of murder by the one who bought the policy?

I'm no lawyer, but a quick browse on the topic shows that courts have ruled in favor of contingent beneficiaries (eg. Josh's siblings) even when the primary beneficiary is guilty of killing the insured.

If the murders occurred within the 2 year contestability period, it's possible the insurance company could deny the claims in their entirety and benefits would be paid to no one.

Just my $0.02 as someone without a law degree.