Don’t treat death as a way to settle debts: life insurance won’t pay out for suicides within two years, workplace injuries won’t be recognized, and debts are still deducted from your estate first

There is no expense involved; you just need to do the math.

Article 44 of the Insurance Law governs contracts where death of the insured is the condition for payment. If the insured dies by suicide within two years of contract formation or reinstatement, the insurer is not liable for payout. In such cases, the insurer must refund the policy's cash value as stipulated in the contract—returning only the refundable balance rather than the insured sum. If the insured was a person without civil capacity at the time of suicide (legally incapable of taking responsibility for their actions), this exemption does not apply. Because life insurance coverage typically reaches hundreds of thousands of yuan, the benefit here is rated as major. Article 16, Item 3 of the Regulations on Work-Related Injury Insurance provides that self-inflicted harm or suicide shall not be recognized as a work-related injury or treated as one. Consequently, all three work-related death benefits under Article 39 fall through: first, the funeral grant, paid at 6 months of the local average monthly employee wage from the previous year; second, the pension for dependent relatives; third, the lump-sum work-related death subsidy, equal to 20 times the previous year's national per capita disposable income of urban residents. Article 1159 of the Civil Code provides that when dividing an estate, taxes and debts owed by the deceased must be settled first; what remains is then distributed. Article 1161 provides that heirs settle debts only up to the actual value of the estate they receive—they do not pay out of their own pockets, and those who waive their inheritance bear no repayment responsibility. For a spouse, Article 1064 of the Civil Code further applies: "Debts incurred based on mutual expression of intent, such as joint signatures by both spouses or post-facto ratification by one spouse, as well as debts incurred by one spouse in their own name during the marriage to meet the daily needs of the household, constitute joint spousal debts." For debts signed jointly or borrowed for household expenses, the spouse is personally liable as a debtor, and waiving inheritance does not escape it.

全国人大常委会 (2015 修正). 中华人民共和国保险法第四十四条. https://flk.npc.gov.cn/detail?id=2c909fdd678bf17901678bf7c4060811；国务院 (2010 修订). 工伤保险条例（国务院令第 586 号）第十六条、第三十九条. https://www.gov.cn/gongbao/content/2011/content_1778064.htm；全国人大 (2020). 中华人民共和国民法典第一千一百五十九条、第一千一百六十一条. https://flk.npc.gov.cn/detail?id=ff808081729d1efe01729d50b5c500bf；全国人大 (2020). 中华人民共和国民法典第一千零六十四条. https://flk.npc.gov.cn/detail?id=ff808081729d1efe01729d50b5c500bf

This item only counts the money. The other items in this section and in section 1 say not to reach this point. Article 44 of the Insurance Law covers only the first 2 years. It is written here so the text of the article is complete. It is not a timetable. The health cost to the family is in item 4 of this section (a person whose spouse died by suicide has a 70% to 80% higher risk of a new mental disorder within 5 years). What to do when the thought appears is in section 1, items 25 and 32. Lasting harm after a person is brought back is in section 1, item 33. The standard for the three work-death payments is in section 19, item 15. How the estate and the debts are handled is in section 25, item 11 (an heir uses only the inherited estate to pay). The money that should be collected is in section 25, item 9 (go and collect the housing provident fund (公积金) and the social insurance (社保) benefits, window by window). Site clarification: Here, “return of the policy’s cash value” refers to cases in which the insurer is not liable to pay the insurance benefit under Article 44 of China’s Insurance Law. The statutory exception for an insured person lacking capacity for civil conduct falls outside that exclusion. A specific dispute requires checking the policy, the facts and the applicable law. Insurance Law: official text