The rejection of assisted dying legislation in Scotland has brought renewed focus to a more complex issue for insurers, as legal frameworks continue to diverge across jurisdictions.
MSPs voted 69 to 57 against the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill at its final stage on March 17, with one abstention, maintaining the current legal position.
The bill, introduced by Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur, would have allowed terminally ill, mentally competent adults to seek medical assistance to end their lives under defined safeguards.
While the outcome preserves the status quo in Scotland, it sharpens attention on how insurers interpret and respond to claims where assisted dying is lawful elsewhere.
Chris Dunn, senior associate at Clyde & Co, said insurers are likely to rely heavily on policy construction when assessing such cases, particularly as more jurisdictions move to legalise assisted dying.
“We anticipate that UK life insurers will assess overseas assisted-dying cases strictly against the local governing law and the exact policy wording,” he said, adding that long-standing suicide or self-inflicted death exclusions may face fresh scrutiny, particularly where medically supervised procedures were not anticipated in older policies.
That shift raises the potential for disputes, especially where wording has not kept pace with legal developments.
“This could create disputes where language has not kept pace with the changing landscape, especially in cross-border policies and multinational benefit schemes.”
The divergence is already visible. While Scotland’s assisted dying bill was rejected at Holyrood on March 17, Jersey’s States Assembly approved assisted dying legislation on February 26, underlining the increasingly fragmented legal landscape facing insurers across different jurisdictions.
That fragmentation introduces new layers of complexity, particularly in multinational programmes and group risk schemes. It also raises questions around consistency of outcomes where policies span multiple legal regimes.
“Insurers and employers may increasingly need clearer, modernised wording to ensure consistent outcomes,” Dunn said. “That is likely to be even more complex where different jurisdictions, including within the UK, may end up with different statutory schemes (or none at all).”
This creates challenges not just at the point of claim, but also in underwriting and policy design, areas where assumptions around jurisdiction have historically been more static.
Dunn said the direction of travel is clear, with insurers likely to move away from standardised approaches as legal divergence increases.
“Cross-border policies will need to be tailored to the legal landscape of each jurisdiction where they are to apply,” he said, noting that what was once a relatively uniform approach is becoming more complex.
“While a generation ago that may have been boilerplate, recent changes mean an individualised approach is required.”
As assisted dying legislation continues to evolve across different jurisdictions, the issue is unlikely to disappear, leaving insurers, advisers and employers to navigate an increasingly fragmented risk landscape.
