Proposition 53K1685

Projet de loi insérant un article 110/1 dans la loi du 25 juin 1992 sur le contrat d'assurance terrestre, pour ce qui concerne la désignation du bénéficiaire d'un contrat d'assurance-vie.

General information ¶

Submitted by

The Senate

Submission date

Oct. 13, 2010

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

inheritance law of succession life assurance insurance

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR VB

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Discussion ¶

Dec. 1, 2011 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Ministers, colleagues, inheritance is often a source of disputes and quarrels between heirs. A survey found that in 4 out of 10 respondents who had to deal with inheritance, that turned into a quarrel; in the majority of cases, it even resulted in a persistent quarrel between family members.

What is it about? Jan has children. He has no reserve heirs and has lived with his life partner for thirty years. He put his savings in a life insurance contract. That printed contract stipulates that in the event of death the beneficiary of the contract is for the spouse, the descendants or, in the absence of this, the legal heirs. However, he has a will and that will determines that the benefit goes to his life partner. This does not prevent the insurance institution from granting the contract advantage to the legal heirs.

In order to remedy that situation, the testamentary beneficiary has no choice but to initiate a court proceedings, with all costs thereof. The bill aims to avoid this situation. The draft was transmitted to us by the Senate, where it was unanimously approved.

What does the bill contain? If the beneficiary designated by the insured person has died, the arbitrary decision made by the deceased person in his will shall prevail over the inheritance. This means that the insurance benefit is owed to the inheritance of the insured. A two-year transitional period has been established to enable insurers to bring into compliance with the law current insurance contracts concluded before the entry into force of the law.

There was a large consensus in the committee on the draft and content of the law. There is an exciting discussion about the two-year transition period. According to some colleagues, this period is too long. Colleague George submitted an amendment in this regard, supplemented by a sub-amendment of the N-VA, in order to come to a faster application of the new law. The PS and CD&V also submitted a number of amendments. These amendments, however, did not succeed after the opinion of the Order of Notaries and Assuralia.

Eventually, the law was approved by a large majority by the committee. A brief report on the work of the Committee on Economic Affairs.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Ministers, dear colleagues, to avoid as much as possible disputes of succession and to respect the will of the testator, this is the purpose of this proposal, which is submitted to vote today. Nowadays, when the life insurance contract does not include the designation of the beneficiary or when the designation of the beneficiary cannot produce effect, the insurance benefits are due to the beneficiary or to the succession of the beneficiary.

Here is a concrete example to explain this case. Uncle Bruno just died, he had no children and had lived for 35 years with his partner Eva. He had placed his savings in a life insurance contract, a standard contract that provided that in the event of death, the beneficiary of the contract was attributed to the spouse or, in the absence, to the descendant or even to the legal heirs. But Bruno had also written his will exclusively in favor of Eva, which did not prevent the insurance company from claiming that the beneficiaries of the contract were indeed the legal heirs.

This is, therefore, the typical example that has already pushed the Senate to vote on the proposal that is submitted to vote today. From now on, when the beneficiary of the life insurance contract is not namely included in the contract, the law will favor, in the case of a will, the designation of the testamentary heirs as beneficiaries of the life insurance contract, thus giving them priority over the legal heirs. The will of the testator will be respected.

But was this really the desire of the insurer? Did he really make this decision with full knowledge of the cause? If that was clearly his will, why didn’t he designate his partner as a beneficiary of life insurance, either in his will or on his contract? In the end, did we not just go beyond interpretation? If, in the case of Uncle Bruno, the conclusion seems to flow from the source, what if he had also laid his best friend on his will by leaving him the painting he loved so much? He also becomes a testamentary heir. Do I have to conclude that he can also benefit from part of the life insurance?

For my group, the best way to avoid any interpretation is still to work at the source, i.e. directly at the level of the life insurance contract. Indeed, the best way to avoid an interpretation is to clearly and namely designate its beneficiary. We will submit a proposal in this regard. Nevertheless, the legislative amendment presented to us today will, we hope, avoid a number of disputes. The successions are quite painful enough to fail to make progress in this matter. That is why my group will support the project.

Thank you, Mr. Henry, for this pedagogical explanation.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, the draft presented here is very interesting and also very important. The Senate has taken a long time to find a final text.

The crux of the draft is the primordial push forward of the testamentary will of the testator as the key element in determining his will, where there would sometimes be some uncertainty due to standard contracts or life insurance contracts. It often happened that people signed a life insurance contract that stated by default: “The legal heirs are the beneficiaries.” However, that was not the case, resulting in very painful and bitch discussions about inheritance, in which the testamentary heir stood in front of the distant cousin or the distant niece, who then, according to the reserve statute, belonged to the heirs, as Mr. Henry correctly pointed out. This situation was wanted to be corrected.

There has then apparently been quite intense consultation from the insurance sector and the notaries to guide the practical development of that law in more or less good jobs. A two-year transition period has been introduced to give insurers the time to inform their insured about the imminent legislative change, if one would prefer to favour a distant nephew or nephew in the contract.

It is, of course, very good news for a liberal faction that the clear expression of the will, whether it is in the will or in the beneficiary clause, gets extra attention and the rather arbitrary legal regulation less. Colleagues, we have had very animated discussions in the Committee on Business, where at first sight some were scared of the lack of legal formation of some Commissioners. However, Algau came to a difficult and very relevant discussion. Colleague Joseph George bonded the cat to the bell by pointing out that for the contracts that have already expired, i.e. of insurers who have died, where the life insurance company does not know exactly to whom to pay, one should immediately declare the present draft applicable. In other words, in cases where there would be a discussion before the court about who is now the beneficiary, the new law should apply immediately.

Colleagues, I have put everything in my power and dedicated my legal creativity to an impossible solution. However, I have not succeeded in this. I would have caused even more problems by wanting to do well. For this reason, I humbly submit to the wisdom of the Senate.

I have tried to improve the text, but I have not succeeded. We will therefore look forward to a two-year period, after which life insurance contracts without explicit preference will finally finally fall under the testamentary regime. For this reason, my group will fully support the draft.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, the draft law under consideration and which will be submitted to vote has been transmitted to us by the Senate where it has been the subject of very long discussions within the working group "Successional Right".

At the time, Senator Marie-Hélène Crombé had expressed some reservations on the proposal, believing that the latter aimed to interpret, after his death, clear intentions of the subscriber of a life insurance contract.

The insurer can predict who will be the beneficiary of his life insurance contract. In the absence of a designated beneficiary, it is customary that the beneficiaries are the legal heirs, in accordance with the provisions of a standard document commonly used by insurance companies.

This bill seeks to provide an answer in the case where the deceased has written a will in which he has, for example, designated a universal legatar, but also concluded a life insurance contract according to which the designated beneficiaries are the legal heirs, which means that the beneficiaries will be the heirs within the meaning of the law and not those recovered in succession, i.e., in the case that occupies us, the legatar mentioned in the will.

In general, this does not correspond to the will of the deceased who would simply accept a standard clause without adapting it to the evolution of his personal situation and without being made aware of the concrete effects.

In the event that, effectively, the insurer would not have measured the practical consequences of the adoption of this standard clause, the bill provides a response and avoids painful and costly appeals before courts and courts. It also prevents many potential and unfortunate family conflicts.

This bill was therefore adopted unanimously in the committee, without the amendments that were introduced by my colleagues who, in their belief, showed a lot of legal creativity; this does not, of course, mean that the others showed "legal laxity". The amendments that had been submitted were therefore rejected because they pushed, according to our conception of things, this reasoning even further.

The discussions that took place were very interesting. After questioning the very philosophy of the submitted amendments, some doubts remained as to their legal certainty.

The MR group wishes to renew the reservations expressed regarding the interpretation of the deceased’s will. Our main concern is to defend above all this will that has been expressed by the steps taken by the subscriber of life insurance. This is what we want to draw the attention of our colleagues.

While it is permissible to think that the insured would actually wish to lease the benefits of his life insurance to his testamentary heirs and not to the legal heirs, nothing guarantees 100% that ⁇ ining the “legal heirs” clause was not simply – yes, it is possible! The wish of the insurer.

In view of this remaining doubt, I will conclude my speech with a word on the application of this bill. In fact, a two-year transitional period has been provided for insurers to inform the insurers of the legislative change to take place and that the latter may, eventually, change the beneficiary or beneficiaries of the life insurance.

In the event that this project would be adopted, which I do not doubt, it seems essential to the MR group that the current contracts, as well as the insurers, have this transition period. In fact, the bill entails the modification of an essential element of the contract.

Mr. President, dear colleagues, I thank you for your attention.

Mr. President, Mr. Minister, colleagues, as the previous speakers already mentioned, this bill was transmitted by the Senate. It avoids that the life insurance belongs to a person not desired by the testator. It is intended to respect the wish of the testator, if there is no wife or children.

Although a few committee members were outraged because this bill was not transmitted to the committee for justice, but to the committee for business – it is all about insurance – we have finally been able to bring the discussion to a good end.

The Senate had set up a working group, which took some time to find a final text. Assuralia and the Royal Federation of the Belgian Notariat gave a favorable advice. The text was then unanimously approved. After a healthy discussion – I look especially at Mr. George and Mr. Schiltz – the text was approved with us unchanged. I never thought we would spend so much time on it. The most important thing is that with this bill we can provide a solution to many disputes, which are caused by a combination of unadapted legal provisions and unadapted common practices in the insurance sector.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Ministers, dear colleagues, inheritance is a source of endless conflicts and disputes. The fractures caused by these difficulties are irreversible.

The bill that is submitted to us from the Senate aims to solve this problem for the future ... in two years. My excellent colleague, Mr. Schiltz, proposed by my side is to find a faster solution and take our responsibilities.

First of all, I would like to thank Mr. Uyttersprot for his excellent report which perfectly took over the issue. Next, I will remind you of an essential point: the benefit of a death insurance contract does not fall into succession. This is where the main problem lies.

It is because of the death that the benefit will be paid to the beneficiaries, but it is not in the succession. However, for many people, at the time when they lay their last wills on a will, they may believe or estimate that by designating a universal legatar, he will receive the entire succession. Of course, the whole succession, but then comes the problem of the beneficiary of the insurance contract.

This is where distortion is created: death insurance or the mixed contract was sometimes decided five years, ten years, thirty or forty years earlier. At the time of signature, the signatories approved a pre-printed form in which, almost unanimously, the spouse, children and, if not, legal heirs are designated as beneficiaries.

Therefore, when an inheritance occurs in the absence of a child and a spouse, a conflict will arise between, on the one hand, the grandchildren, legal heirs and, on the other hand, the person designated in the will, chosen nominatively well after the signing of the contract to become the beneficiary of the inheritance.

In the face of such a situation, courts and courts are divided: some believe that the legal heir lying on this document of beneficiary attribution derives from the law, but the law is also what gives force to the will.

Therefore, he can be the testamentary heir as well as the legal heir, in the absence of a testament. This is where the difficulties arise. As jurisprudence is divided, notaries are divided and conflicts multiply. We must regret that we are only observers of this situation. I regret this frilance. We must take this problem hand-to-hand, not only for the future and in two years by being indulgeous with the practices of insurance companies. Because it is the banks and insurance companies that are at the root of the problems with this pre-printed form. Inserting a moratorium is a beautiful gift that is given to them! I don’t see why the legislator we are should be more generous to the dead than to the living!

That is why some colleagues and I supported the amendments. We missed a voice, but we had our panch. Mr. Schiltz, we have been beaten!

This law proposal is good, but it sins by timidity. We will vote for it, while regretting the frilance of some of our colleagues.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the various speakers for their support for this text which, nonetheless, resolves a problem that has just been again described after fairly detailed discussions in the committee. I understand that there are still doubts about a number of possible improvements. As has been said, a transitional provision settles a number of situations. The fact of going beyond also poses legal security problems.

For now, the best is the enemy of the good, but ⁇ in the coming months we will find other mechanisms.

I thank all the groups who have chosen to support the text as it is presented today, with this transitional provision and a solution for a very large number of cases.