When a death occurs — we hope for one due to old age, but dead is dead, and the company pays (except suicide in the first one or two years, or one of the few exclusions that may be in the policy, such as war or act of war, military service, flying an airplane, or
certain hazardous occupations or
hobbies — many policies only have the suicide exclusion), you can think of the death benefit in one of two ways.