Aviation Exclusion

What Does Aviation Exclusion Mean?

A clause present in many life insurance policies, the aviation exclusion states that the death benefit will be void if the insured dies as a result of an aviation-related accident unless they were on a regularly scheduled flight.

Anyone buying a policy who flies privately or works in aviation should read this clause carefully, since it often interacts with how an accidental death benefit rider pays out.

Insuranceopedia Explains Aviation Exclusion

This means that if the policyholder dies in a private plane crash or sustains aviation-related injuries while in a private aircraft, the beneficiary would not be able to claim the death benefit. Depending on the specific policy, the aviation exclusion clause may also list other excluded scenarios, such as death while parachuting from an aircraft or while traveling as a crew member, student pilot, or pilot.

Because of this, families dealing with a pilot’s death sometimes find out about the exclusion only when they try to file a claim, so it pays to know how to collect life insurance as a beneficiary and what paperwork the insurer will ask for before that situation arises.