Chris Cornell’s lawyer Kirk Pasich discussed the late Soundgarden singer’s life insurance policy in a recent Law Dragon interview. Pasich mentioned that the suicide exclusion in the policy was only for three years and not active at the time of his May 2017 death. This ends speculation that there was any battle over insurance money, and shows that the Cornell family’s investigation into how Ativan may have contributed to Chris Cornell’s death is about searching for answers.
“One of our partners in New York, Jeff Schulman, is very close with Chris and his family as well, and has known Chris over the years, and so we’re coordinating for the family. It gave rise to some questions. And some wondered why in the world is some insurance recovery guy representing Chris Cornell? Is this to get to his life insurance policy for his family? Some speculated that there’s a suicide exclusion in his life insurance policies, so maybe this is just all kind of a game to get the coverage, but it wasn’t. Chris did have life insurance. It did have a suicide exclusion, but that exclusion was for something like three years after policy inception and these policies had been around for a long, long time.
It had nothing to do with that. It had to do with being tasked with figuring out, and sharing, what really happened in that Detroit hotel room that night.
That’s what the family asked us to do and there was a lot of speculation out there in the media, on social media, things that were just wrong. It was important to protect the privacy of his wife and his three children. I ended up being the primary spokesperson. I wasn’t the only spokesperson, but I ended up doing a lot of the talking. To this day, I think a lot of people still wonder how is it that somebody who specializes in insurance ended up working and speaking on behalf of the family, and one of rock’s icons. But, I’ve been involved in music and working with artists for several decades now. It’s the relationship and that experience that counted here.”
