LA Times thinks suicides tied to financial rewards?

Does this happen? Sure it does and it also happens when they use a vehicle with insurance on it so they can leave something behind for their families. Having insurance does not cause them to kill themselves!

Looking closer at the role of life insurance in military suicides
For distressed service members, knowing death comes with a financial reward for kin could provide extra motivation, experts say.
LA Times
By Alan Zarembo
September 8, 2013

Army Spc. James Christian Paquette walked into the benefits office at Ft. Wainwright, Alaska, with a question: Did his military life insurance policy pay in cases of suicide? He was assured that it did.

Less than two weeks later, he shot and killed himself — and his family collected $400,000.

His widow struggles with the question of whether he would have proceeded with his plan if suicide had not been covered. "He just wanted to know we would be provided for," Jami Calahan said. "It may have been a weight taken away."

The role of life insurance has not been closely examined in the quest to understand why 352 active-duty service members took their own lives last year — more than double the number a decade earlier.
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