Simultaneous death
The rule deciding who inherits when two people die together and the order cannot be established.
What it means
Most inheritance depends on somebody surviving somebody else. A will leaves everything to a spouse; a policy names a beneficiary; a joint account passes to the survivor. When two people die in the same accident, the order decides where a great deal of property goes, and sometimes it cannot be established.
The original rule was that where there is no sufficient evidence of the order, each person's property is distributed as if they had survived the other. The revised uniform act goes further and requires survival by 120 hours — five days — proved by clear and convincing evidence, before somebody is treated as having survived at all.
The practical effect of the 120-hour rule is that a spouse who dies four days after the other is treated as having died first for inheritance purposes, so each estate passes to its own family rather than one passing through the other. A will or a beneficiary designation can set its own survival period, and where it does, it governs.
Why it matters
It decides whether one family's property passes through the other's estate, which changes both who inherits and what tax applies.
It applies automatically and silently. An executor who distributes on the assumption that the survivor inherited may have distributed to the wrong estate entirely.
When you are likely to meet it
- When a married couple die in the same accident.
- When a beneficiary dies within days of the person who named them.
- When a will or a policy contains a survival clause — "if my spouse survives me by thirty days".
How this varies by state
Whether a state uses the 120-hour rule or the older "no sufficient evidence" test, and whether it applies to joint property and beneficiary designations as well as to wills, is set by state law.