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Tom Fischer
03-26-2013, 12:34 AM
Hi, anybody know of a forum for Life insurance products?

My wife had an uncle who passed 8 years ago.
She was administrator, small estate.
Now 2 term life insurance policies have been found.
Might be a few small wrinkles, but not much money here, maybe a few thousand.
Don't want to call the same lawyer again. Not enough money here to pay him.
Any ideas?

Thanks
Tom

Brian Tymchak
03-26-2013, 6:20 AM
I would call the insurance company directly and ask what their process is to open a claim. No need to involve a lawyer, at least not at this point. There's been lots of "focus" on the insurers lately about not doing enough to find beneficiaries and paying off policies of the deceased. You might find them very easy to work with. (Just speculation on my part).

Tom Fischer
03-26-2013, 6:30 AM
Thanks Brian,

Actually a search firm/Private Detective (hired by Prudential Insurance) called me, looking for my wife.
Pru queued up these unclaimed assets, scheduled to revert to State of NJ property in a month.
So, they are indeed following a regulated process.
I just wanted to double check some stuff, e.g. they want us to send them the original Insurance Policies (which we have) back to them.
Can't reverse that once I do it.

My wife was Power of Attorney for her uncle, and beneficiary on one policy, but they have lost the record of who was beneficiary on the other.
Pretty sure that is my wife as well.
So a few wrinkles here.
Just looking for "uninterested" opinions.

David Weaver
03-26-2013, 7:35 AM
Yes, call. They'd rather have you collect those claims than keep them and I doubt any of the firms who want to assist you would do it for less than a large fraction of the proceeds. And they probably would just tell you the same thing as CS at the insurance company would.

Brian Tymchak
03-26-2013, 8:33 AM
..e.g. they want us to send them the original Insurance Policies (which we have) back to them.
Can't reverse that once I do it.


That does seem a bit odd, particularly since they initiated the contact. The one time I filed a claim on a Life Insurance policy, it seems like there was 1 form + proof of death + proof of my identity, and that was it. I don't recall having to surrender the original policy doc. Hopefully their customer service can answer those questions.

Tom Fischer
03-26-2013, 10:31 AM
That does seem a bit odd, particularly since they initiated the contact. The one time I filed a claim on a Life Insurance policy, it seems like there was 1 form + proof of death + proof of my identity, and that was it. I don't recall having to surrender the original policy doc. Hopefully their customer service can answer those questions.

Pru states in their correspondence that, regarding the first policy "we are unable to locate the beneficiary endorsement for the policy listed above". The second policy is intact.

Maybe that's why they want the originals back, they are missing stuff.

Which brings up another issue, my wife hired an attorney to have everything probated. These Insurance policies are in the box with everything else. She must have listed them in the inventory. Why didn't the lawyer resolve this, file the insurance claims? (Seems he is still in practice)

Matt Meiser
03-26-2013, 11:05 AM
So do you have the beneficiary info for the first? I know from experience with my wife's dad that he had one policy with no beneficiary listed. Since he had no assets, that was the only reason to run his estate through probate and it was borderline worthwhile.

Tom Fischer
03-26-2013, 11:21 AM
So do you have the beneficiary info for the first?...

No. But we don't have the beneficiary info for the second either, just that Pru didn't lose it (the "beneficiary endorsement").

Further, the correspondence from the Insurance company states, regarding the first one (missing the beneficiary endorsement):

"Policy number 0951......" contains a provision called Facility of Payment. If there is no named beneficiary ... the proceeds maybe paid to any of the Insured's relatives by blood or connection by marriage who appear to Prudential to be equitably entitled to the proceeds."

But as you mention Matt, if this has to be probated, probably not worth it.
My wife probated the original estate. I don't think anybody who received a distribution even thanked her.

Jim Mackell
03-26-2013, 11:55 AM
Traditionally insurance companies always try to get the original policies back. Saves confusion if someone finds them 10 or 20 years later and gets pissed when their claim is denied.

Insurance benefits are excluded from probate and taxes. They pass directly to the beneficiary. Never heard of an insurance company not knowing who the beneficiary was. That's very unique.

Tom Fischer
03-26-2013, 12:00 PM
Traditionally insurance companies always try to get the original policies back. Saves confusion if someone finds them 10 or 20 years later and gets pissed when their claim is denied.

Insurance benefits are excluded from probate and taxes. They pass directly to the beneficiary. Never heard of an insurance company not knowing who the beneficiary was. That's very unique.

Thanks for that. All makes sense.
Pru is also asking for documentation of funeral bills. Why's that?
(We do have it here)

I remember reading some stories last Oct/Nov 2012 hurricane and flood, some bank vaults in NYC had serious damage to physical securities (bearer bonds).
The reports were huge money.
Wild, very wild guess, Pru lost some stuff there too?

Matt Meiser
03-26-2013, 1:26 PM
In my wife's dad's case, he never set a beneficiary up on the one policy so I'm just wondering if that could be the case here? Regardless, if there's no documentation of who it is, I'd guess it reverts to the estate because what else could they do?

I think they ask for the funeral bills because the insurance can be used to pay for the funeral. Thankfully I don't have much experience with that but I remember something about using life insurance to pay for the funeral, basically like a lien.