Your point is an important one, al66pine. Here are some thoughts relevant to your question as to whether Sheilas insurance company could have slipped up and already paid Heather life insurance benefits:
1. In the article I quoted and linked to in post #718, it specifically says an insurance company should not pay out
if the beneficiary is a suspect, if there is a homicide investigate ongoing, or if the beneficiary may be pending trial. All three of those things are the case in the matter of Sheilas death, so that makes it difficult to imagine Heather, or anyone, could access the insurance funds quickly. Heather was arrested the day after the murder, so her possible culpability was clear even before the autopsy and thus before the death certificate could have been issued. (It is possible, of course, that Sheilas insurance company does not follow these procedures.).
....snipped ....
4. In your earlier post you asked if a Bali death certificate includes information on manner of death. I dont know. But there has also been an FBI autopsy conducted here in the U.S. I assume that William Wiese (Sheilas brother) has been apprised of the results. He may have already communicated this information (as well as the findings of the Bali autopsy) to the relevant insurance company. Or the insurance company, if it follows the procedures recommended in the Schuman article, may have requested that information directly from the FBI (or even Bali authorities). If the FBI is continuing to assist Bali authorities, then it may doing research on Sheilas assets (like insurance policies) and is in contact with those institutions and people controlling such assets.
Sheila's brother, IIRC, is executor of her estate - in probate ct.
He may also be successor tt'ee of her trust.
Still wondering who she named as life ins beneficiary, as
it seems, imo, neither of those 2 fiduciary positions entitles him to any info or $ re life ins,
unless she named trust as beneficiary or named 'estate' as beneficiary.
Certainly brother could provide info to ins co re the death and re Heather's arrest and crim charges.
Yes, FBI autopsy done in US, so that autopsy rpt may have bn provided to Ins Co.
Putting myself in Heather's state of mind after arrest -(a very naive mind?) - how she would try to get $ for legal rep in Bali?
If she knew uncle was successor tt'ee (I'm assuming he is, but may not be)
she might anticipate he would refuse to pay counsel for her, in this circumstance.
I thought about various types of assets and property & which types might be fastest and easiest for her to access.
Of course, from foreign jail, none would seem to be easy.
But life ins benefit is likely - generally speaking- to be faster than any probate proceeding. jmo
5. We have little information on Bali rules of procedure. Is it possible that as long as Heather is under suspicion for the murder she is not entitled to documents like the death certificate, specifically to keep her benefiting from Sheilas death until a court has disposed of the case against her? This is pure speculation on my part, so it would be useful to know what Bali procedures are in a case like Heathers.
Possibly.
I wonder if she or anyone there in confinement sends and receives uncensored mail.
6. Assuming that Heather wanted to access insurance funds, how would she do it? Its possible she didnt even know what company Sheila used for insurance. (When I was that age, I never paid any attention to the companies my parents had insurance or stock dealings with.) Even if she asked Elkin to do it, how would he proceed? Do we have reason to believe that any of the people with the relevant information (Sheilas brother or Sheilas lawyers) would assist Elkin, given that Heather is under arrest and suspected of Sheilas murder? To proceed, would Elkin need paperwork that includes Heathers signature, which would allow him to advance a request for the insurance funds on her behalf? Would the Bali police let Elkin forward such paperwork to them to forward on to Heather?
If Bali police require that only an Indonesian attorney be permitted to submit such paperwork to Heather, then this has only recently been possible, since Heather refused to talk to her original Indonesian lawyer. By the time the new Indonesian lawyer came on the scene, Heathers arrest and possible culpability had been widely publicized.
7. In light of Shumans article, is it possible that insurance companies, in cases where death is homicide, require that the beneficiary sign a document which says they have not been questioned by police as to their possible culpability in the homicide or something similar? Heather may have no compunctions about lying, but Elkin would be the attorney submitting the papers. Wouldn't he know the ramifications of filing declarations that are false and therefore not do it? Would his filing such paperwork affect him directly? Again, these are speculative questions.
Good question.
8. Schuman notes that it has been the case that an insurance companys life insurance policy has included the expressed provision that the company will not pay anyone (that is, not even the alternate beneficiaries of the policy) if the beneficiary murders the insured party. (The insurer may include a contractual provision expressly terminating its liability in the event the beneficiary unlawfully kills the insured. This was a case in Idaho.
http://www.thefederation.org/documents/schuman.htm just before and including footnote 124.) Should Sheilas policy have such a provision, that would suggest that her insurance company would always wait to pay out until it had eliminated murder as the manner of death, and then established that the beneficiary was not the murderer. There would be no chance of slipping through a fast one by Heather under these conditions.
For all these reasons, I dont think it is likely that Heather has already or can any time soon, obtain access to Sheilas life insurance payout. That is a good thing, in my view.
Agreed, it's a good thing.
Sorry this post is so long. But I would be horrified if Heather could financially benefit from murder, so Ive spent a good deal of time thinking and reading about this issue.
Me too.
PS: Does "SBM" mean "shortened by me"?
