Social media posts making claims about COVID-19 vaccines affecting life insurance policies have been making the rounds.
They say things like policies are invalidated if you get vaccinated or they won’t pay out if you die within a year of getting vaccinated. Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner Glen Mulready has seen some posts and responded to a few himself.
"No, when you get a vaccine — the COVID-19 vaccine — it does not void your life insurance policy, or your health insurance policy for that matter, too," Mulready said.
Many of the false posts cite the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration having emergency use authorizations. Mulready said insurers can’t just decide to change policies based on that.
"The fact is, a life insurance policy is a contract between you and the insurance company, and your application for that becomes part of that contract and they can’t just change that contract," Mulready said.
Insurers could ask state regulators to let them add exclusions to policies going forward, but those could not apply to existing policies. Mulready doesn’t think insurers would ask for a COVID vaccine exclusion, anyway.
One in four Oklahomans has received at least one COVID vaccine shot.
