Fact Check: Can life insurance companies deny you coverage or deny a death benefit if you got the Covid vaccine?
There is a lot of fake news out there, especially on Social Media, this is a perfect example: “Just so you are aware many have died from the COVID vaccine, and if you have life insurance you cannot collect it because the vaccine is deemed experimental. Therefore you are not covered if you die from the vaccine” is just one of the many tweets and memes out there spreading misinformation. Just because you saw it on Facebook does not mean it is true.
There have been some memes floating around with the false information that insurance companies are denying coverage or denying death benefits if an insured has been vaccinated. This is a false claim. Life insurance policies are a legal contract. If a life insurance policy was written before COVID-19 even existed, it cannot possibly have an exclusion relating to something that didn’t exist yet. New life insurance policies don’t have any COVID-related exclusions either. READ YOUR POLICY! Try to find the word “COVID” or “coronavirus” anywhere in there. You won’t find those words because there are no exclusions for them.
It is true that most life insurance companies tightened their underwriting standards during the 2020 Corona Virus pandemic. Now that more and more Americans are being vaccinated and protected from the virus, most life insurance providers have returned to their pre-pandemic underwriting standards or relaxed them significantly. However, once your policy has been approved, the death benefit would be legally required to be paid out in the event of a COVID-related death.