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Man bought 12 insurance policies, then fell to his death overseas in bizarre case
Published Jan 10, 2026, 05:00 AMUpdated Jan 10, 2026, 04:33 PM
A man over-insured himself for $7 million before he fell to his death in a bizarre overseas accident.
PHOTO: LIANHE ZAOBAO
Tan Ooi Boon
It sounded like something from a TV series – a man bought multiple insurance policies to insure himself for millions of dollars and then died in a bizarre overseas accident not long after.
The Singapore man, who used to be an insurance agent before working as an accountant, had signed up for a total of 12 life policies which covered him for almost $7 million.
It was not known why the man chose to pay for such a high coverage when his annual income was about $75,000. In particular, the last six of his policies were all signed with well-known insurers here within four months.
About two years after he paid for the latest policies, he fell to his death in Australia while he and his wife were viewing an apartment on the 33rd floor of a building.
The Coroners Court of Victoria, Australia, found that he died from “multiple injuries sustained in a fall from height” and that the fall was accidental.
The widow later sued one of the insurers, but the High Court ruled in 2021 that she could not claim under the $1 million policy because the insurer was entitled to reject the claim due to fraudulent non-disclosure and misrepresentation.
When the deceased signed the policy with the insurer, he replied “no” to questions on whether he had applied for similar policies or had others that were pending.
The court found that the answer was false because at that time, the man had just made three applications for life insurance shortly before meeting the agent of the insurer.
This unusual case was highlighted by the High Court again in 2025, this time to deny the same widow’s application to sell a property that was held on trust for her six-year-old son.
The court noted she did not disclose that she could be in debt because she had to pay close to $600,000 in legal fees to her lawyers for her failed action against the insurers.
Here are two important points that all of us should know when we buy insurance policies.
Maximum for life insurance
While everyone’s life is priceless, you cannot simply ask for a $100 million life insurance for yourself, even if you have the means to pay the high premiums.To get such a coverage, you need to show that you earn more than $3 million in a year because most insurers would put a cap on the insured amount, which would be up to 30 times the customer’s annual income.
This multiplier applies to someone aged 20 to 40, with the limit being lower for those who are older.
In making any underwriting assessment, insurers would also take into account both existing policies and pending applications with all companies when comparing against the maximum insured sum.
In this case, based on the man’s age and disclosed annual income, the maximum for his total coverage was $2.25 million, or less than a third of the total coverage of $6.9 million that he had taken before he died.
In dismissing the widow’s claim for the payout, the High Court noted that if the deceased had given full disclosure of his existing and pending applications for life policies, his application would have been rejected because the coverage would have exceeded his life insurance limit.
Critical to disclose vital information
Insurers have the right to reject a claim if it is found that their customers have withheld certain information that can affect the decision to sell them the policies.In this case, the widow argued that her late husband had disclosed to the insurance agents that he had bought other polices, but they had advised him that he did not need to mention these policies.
The High Court found her claim to be unbelievable as it suggested that all the agents from different insurance companies had made the same fundamental error of excluding vital information.
As the widow was a former agent herself, she would know that such conduct would be wrong, and yet she did not complain to the Monetary Authority of Singapore about the agents.
Moreover, the court also noted the widow’s conduct in only listing seven policies totalling about $2.7 million when she applied for an order to manage her late husband’s estate.
She also did not want one of her insurance agents to accompany her to see her lawyer, as doing so would enable the agent to discover that her late husband had other policies.
Finally, the purpose of buying life insurance is to ensure your loved ones have the means to carry on when you are no longer around. So it does not make sense to give untrue statements to the insurers, because doing so means your loved ones will not get anything.
