Matilda Rose Ledger :Heath Ledger Life Insurance Scandal

Heath Ledger made his daughter, Matilda Rose Ledger, the beneficiary of his life insurance policy. The problem is that the company holding the policy is not paying up claiming that Ledger might have committed suicide.Heath Ledger took out a $10 million life insurance policy about six months before he died. ReliaStar Life Insurance Company wrote the policy with Matilda Rose Ledger, his 2-year-old daughter, as the beneficiary. The money was to be held in trust for her benefit.

The insurance company has refused to pay the claim and instead has attempted to investigate whether or not Ledger took his own life in spite of the fact that his death was official determined to have been due to an accidental overdose. The trustee of Matilda’s inheritance has filed suit against the company on her behalf claiming that the insurance company is unlawfully attempting to pry into Ledger’s life, intimate witnesses and drag out the payment of benefits as long as possible.

The attorneys for the insurance company are demanding medical records of any and every medical person or institution Ledger saw since 1996, depositions with and exhaustive list of his friends including Mary-Kate Olsen and the masseuse who was in his home when he died and people involved in his last film.If they can determine he committed suicide then they don’t have a provision through which they will only have to pay Matilda the premiums that were paid to them for the policy.

Another loophole they are attempting to use is claiming that he may have lied on his application for the insurance policy. They are claiming that he denied using illegal drugs and denied that he was on any prescription drugs when he filled out the application. They are claiming this even though his autopsy showed no illegal drugs in his system at the time of his death. They say he had a prescription for Ambien, but none was in his system when he died.

On a more positive note, the Ledger family is giving Matilda the full amount of Ledger’s estate. He had not updated his will since Matilda had been born which meant she was not included in his will. All of his estate had been left to his siblings and parents. The family have stated that they felt his intent would have been for Matilda to be the beneficiary of his estate and have turned it all over to a trustee for the little girl. His estate is estimated at about $20 million (USD).