Bill to aid victims of abuse proposed Life insurance policy cancellation at issue

FORT KENT – State Rep. Troy Jackson is fulfilling an election campaign promise to try to remove a possible threat from those in domestic abuse situations.

His bill, LD 409, which would allow a former spouse or domestic partner to cancel life insurance policies in their name, may be the first such effort nationally.

Last year, Judy Ouellette, who works for the Battered Women’s Project in Fort Kent, met Jackson, an independent legislator from Fort Kent, in a restaurant during his campaign. She told him how abusive spouses or partners held life insurance policies above the heads of people they abused.

“‘You’re worth more dead than alive,’ a woman could be told by her abusive husband or partner,” Ouellette recalled telling Jackson. “He kept his promise and introduced a bill, and I went down and testified for it.

“We didn’t get exactly what we wanted, but we have a bill that is going to be voted upon,” she said Wednesday. “It makes us feel good that we have made a step in the right direction.”

Jackson’s bill has come out of the Joint Standing Committee on Insurance and Financial Services with an ought-to-pass recommendation and will go to the full House, Jackson said Wednesday.

The legislator didn’t know when the bill would come before the House. It had not been scheduled by Wednesday.

The bill allows one partner to cancel a life insurance policy bought in his or her name by the other partner during the marriage or partnership.

The bill’s provisions were amended to be implemented only when the abusing spouse or partner had been found guilty of domestic abuse.

“I sponsored the bill primarily to address concerns specific to domestic violence,” the legislator said. “I thought this was something that should be addressed because it is a form of control.”

Ouellette said under present law, abused people cannot remove themselves from life insurance policies taken out by their spouses or partners when the relationship was better. To remove themselves from such policies, abuse victims need the permission of the person who bought the policy, oftentimes the abuser.

“With such policies over their heads, victims are often told they are worth more dead than alive,” Ouellette said. “In a domestic violence situation, it can be used to coerce victims.”

“I have seen how the life insurance policy situation was a tactic in relationships,” she said. “It has happened on more than one occasion.”

Ouellette, who has been with BWP for more than three years, came across such cases during the 14 years she worked in the insurance industry.

She said she was disappointed that the bill was amended to include the court process because, she explained, only about 10 percent of abusive crimes are ever reported. She said most women won’t go through the court system out of fear of reprisals.

Jackson said it is difficult for people to get out of abusive relationships, and it is not unusual for victims to continue to be threatened once out of the relationship.

“The abuser being the beneficiary of a life insurance policy places undue power and control over victims,” he said. “It’s a small step in the right direction.”