Insurance Act amendments positive
Proposed amendments to the Ontario Insurance Act are poised to fix beneficiary designation procedures known to be complicated under the existing legislation, Toronto trust and estate lawyer Ian Hull says in Law Times. Read Law Times
“The amendments are positive on two levels: one from the estates planning standpoint and the other is from the family law bar,” Hull, partner with Hull & Hull LLP, says in the article.
“I think it adds flexibility to the estates planner because you can clearly put in an alternate on the beneficiary designation that wasn’t readily available before.”
The Law Times report discusses issues faced by lawyer Nicholas Gehl, who stands to lose his daughter’s life insurance money to the husband convicted of killing her.
Nadia Gehl’s husband, Ronald Cyr, is seeking to appeal his conviction last year for first-degree murder in the case, a move that could allow him to receive up to $500,000 in insurance money if the court finds him not criminally responsible, the article states, noting that her father believes amendments to s. 194 of the Insurance Act could prevent Cyr from receiving the money.
The province has yet to proclaim the amendments, Law Times reports.
