ETHICS Life insurance policies place the burden on beneficiaries to notify the insurance company when an insured dies. The company itself has no obligation to hunt down the heirs of dead customers. But sometimes beneficiaries do not know that their relative had a policy. Some state authorities are now requiring insurance companies to run a list of their policy owners through a database of people who have died. But the insurance companies are objecting because, they say, they priced the policies originally on the assumption that a certain percentage of them would never be paid. What is the ethical choice for insurers? What would Kant or Mill say?
