Short answer. Rule 39, Section 13 exempts from execution Monies, benefits, privileges, or annuities accruing or in any manner growing out of any life insurance. Unlike several neighbouring exemptions, this one carries no peso ceiling — the whole class is placed outside the reach of a levy.
What the law says
Monies, benefits, privileges, or annuities accruing or in any manner growing out of any life insurance
Rule 39, Section 13 — Property exempt from execution. Read the full provision →
A deliberately wide clause
Most of the exemptions in Section 13 are hedged: furniture up to a stated value, a professional library up to a stated value, a fishing boat up to a stated value. This one is not. It speaks of monies, benefits, privileges, or annuities, and it reaches whatever accrues or in any manner grows out of any life insurance. Four nouns and the phrase "in any manner" are doing deliberate work: the drafters were describing a source, not a fixed sum. What matters is that the money traces to life insurance, not what form it takes when the sheriff finds it.
Why life insurance is treated this way
Life insurance exists to put money into the hands of people at the moment they have lost the person who supported them. A rule that let an unrelated creditor intercept the proceeds would defeat the arrangement precisely when it is needed. So the exemption is not a loophole for debtors; it is a recognition that these funds are meant for dependants. It sits comfortably beside the neighbouring clause protecting the right to receive legal support and government pensions — the same protective instinct, applied to a different source.
The limits worth knowing
The clause covers what grows out of life insurance. It is not a shield for money that merely passed through an insurer, and it does not convert ordinary assets into exempt ones because they were later used to buy a policy in the face of an existing judgment — a transfer made to defeat creditors raises entirely separate questions this section does not address. Note too the closing proviso of Section 13: nothing in the list is exempt from execution on a judgment recovered for the price of that same thing, or on a foreclosure of a mortgage over it.
If proceeds are levied on anyway
Section 13 tells the sheriff what is off limits, but it does not identify for him which funds in an account came from an insurance payout. Where proceeds have been mixed with other money, the exemption has to be traced and shown rather than assumed. Keep the policy, the claim documents and the credit advice together, so the path from the insurer to the account can be demonstrated if a levy has to be resisted.