Court Opinion

ID: 9593075
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:19:14.429244+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:17:25.727085
License: Public Domain

Carley, Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur in the majority opinion. However, I wish to write further with regard to Division 4 dealing with the defendant’s contention that the trial court erred in allowing the jury to consider plaintiff’s claim to recover the “ACCIDENTAL DEATH BENEFIT” provided by the policy. As indicated in Division 4, the defendant contends that accidental death benefits were excluded by the terms of the Childrens Insurance Rider which provides that: “BENEFIT OPTIONS of the policy do not apply to this rider. . . .” The majority states that “defendant points to no specific provision in plaintiff’s policy which describes the ‘ACCIDENTAL DEATH BENEFIT’ as an optional benefit. Further, we have examined plaintiff’s entire policy and find no language showing that the ‘ACCIDENTAL DEATH BENEFIT’ provision was optional coverage for plaintiff.” (Majority Opinion, p. 5.) I agree with the majority’s conclusion in Division 4 that plaintiff was not precluded from recovering the accidental death benefit by virtue of the above quoted language in the “CHILDRENS INSURANCE RIDER.” However, I do not think that this conclusion is mandated only because of the absence of a specific policy provision describing the double indemnity provision as an “optional benefit.” The majority paraphrases the exclusion from the Childrens Insurance Rider as an “optional benefit,” while the applicable language is “Benefit Options.” Page 1 of the policy states: “The Benefit Options are ways we can pay the death proceeds. ...” The table of contents lists “Benefit Options” as being shown on page 8 of the policy. Page 8 of the policy is entitled “Benefit Options,” and on that page, four different methods of payment of death proceeds are set forth. Thus, the accidental death benefit of the policy is not a “benefit option.” The trial court did not err in allowing the plaintiff to recover under the “ACCIDENTAL DEATH BENEFIT” provision of her policy.
*7Decided March 8, 1991.
Douglas L. Gibson, for appellant.
Kopp, Peavy & Conner, J. Edwin Peavy, for appellee.