Although credit life insurance is not compulsory for individuals when obtaining a loan, banks prefer to have it. Life insurance can be taken out without a mortgage, personal loan or car loan. This is the right choice for those who will take out a loan. Because in case the borrower dies, all debts are paid by the insurance.
If the borrower has taken out life insurance, the insurance company pays the loan debt in the event of his/her death. In the event of the death of the borrower, the insurance company requests a certificate of cause of death in order to pay the loan debt. If the cause of death is unexplained, suicide is suspected or the death is suspicious, the insurance company requests an autopsy. The insurance company will refuse to make a payment if the death was due to suicide, or if the death was caused by someone else, or if the exact cause of death cannot be determined as a suspicious death. In order for the insurance company to make a payment, the cause of death must be known.
First of all, the person is obliged to declare if he/she has a disease when signing the insurance policy. The consequence of making a false statement about the disease will be that the insurance company will not make any payment. However, if the deceased person died due to a chronic illness and this is not included in the policy, an investigation is initiated. First of all, it is determined since which date this disease has been detected.
If this disease existed before the insurance policy was taken out and the deceased person deliberately did not report it to the insurance company, the insurance company will not make a payment. If the existence of such a disease was not diagnosed before taking out the loan, the insurance company is required to make a payment if this disease has progressed and caused death without the deceased person’s knowledge. The important point here is that the insured person has deliberately concealed this disease from the insurance company, i.e. made a false statement.
The clauses specified by insurance companies for life insurance are not the same. The insurance company usually determines the life insurance clauses within a certain framework. It is necessary to examine the clauses of the signed policy. The period for applying to the insurance company, the scope and conditions of life insurance and other issues are included in this contract. If an insurance policy is issued and signed due to a consumer loan, it is possible to cancel some articles written by the insurance company as general conditions contrary to the purpose of the insurance. It would be in your favor to consult a lawyer to examine the policy.
Having credit life insurance means that the entire loan debt of the person will be paid. In such a case, the loan amount paid by the person who has paid a part of the loan debt and then died is returned to the heirs.
However, insurance companies may refuse to pay some or all of the loan amount to the heirs due to additional clauses in their contracts.
When you encounter such a situation, you can get help from a lawyer to review the contract and provide guidance.
In order to receive the payment, the deceased borrower must apply to the bank and the insurance company with the death certificate of the deceased borrower and the certificate of inheritance . If the insurance company does not pay in this case either, you can seek your rights legally.
The Court of Cassation, with a precedent decision on consumer loans, decided that if the person who took a loan from the bank dies, the remaining loan debt will be paid by the insurance company. In its precedent decision, the 13th Civil Chamber of the Court of Cassation stated;
“Thedeceased of the defendants took out life insurance upon the request of the bank in order to create collateral for the loan he used from the bank. In fact, the life insurance taken out by the consumer at the request of the lending bank is not an insurance taken out by the consumer voluntarily, but an insurance taken out at the request of the bank to provide collateral for its own receivables. In the insurance policy, the consumer is the insured, the bank is the beneficiary and the insurance company is the issuer of the insurance policy. The dain (creditor) and murtehini (pledgee) of the policy is the bank.
In the event of the occurrence of the risk, the bank must first collect the outstanding loan receivable within the scope of the policy coverage from the insurance company. Since the insurance company is the beneficiary, it cannot claim against the bank that the consumer has health problems, for example, that he hides his heart disease or cancer. Because the issuer of the insurance policy is the insurance company itself or its authorized agent. While the bank has the opportunity to easily collect its receivables such as a life insurance policy, initiating enforcement proceedings or filing a lawsuit for its receivables within the scope of the policy limit on the grounds that the insurer has refused the payment request is contrary to the rule of honesty regulated in Article 2 of the TCC.
For this reason, in the event that a life insurance policy has been issued for bank loans that are consumer transactions, the bank is obliged to collect the remaining loan receivable within the policy limits from the insurance company. This is a prerequisite for the bank to file a lawsuit against the heirs of the consumer.
The bank may only claim from the consumer’s heirs for the remaining receivable for which the policy limit is not sufficient.
While there is a life insurance policy in the name of the consumer who uses the loan, the bank filing a lawsuit or initiating enforcement proceedings for the collection of the unpaid balance loan receivable from the consumer’s heirs due to the death of the consumer would be contrary to the basic principles of insurance law and the purpose of insurance, as well as undermine the trust and confidence in insurance. Therefore, the bank must first collect its receivables from the insurance policy.
Article 2 of the Civil Code states, ‘Everyone is obliged to abide by the rules of honesty when exercising their rights and fulfilling their obligations. The legal order does not protect the flagrant abuse of a right’. Accordingly, the initiation of proceedings against the heir without exhausting all legal remedies by the plaintiff bank does not comply with the rule of good faith. While the court should dismiss the lawsuit, which is understood to have been filed prematurely, considering this issue, it is contrary to the procedure and the law to establish a written judgment by going into the merits of the matter and requires the reversal of the judgment.” He sided with the consumer by saying.