How to Find the Life Insurance Policy of a Deceased Person?

A life insurance policy plays an important role in shaping your finances. Not only does it protect your family’s future in case of your untimely demise, but it also gives you the freedom to make financial choices without worrying about your family’s future. When a life insurance policyholder dies, a death benefit is paid to his/her family from the insurance company. However, in many cases, the insurance company is not aware of the death of the policyholder, but the recipients of the policy are. Therefore, you should apply to the insurance company as soon as possible to enjoy the death benefits.

However, if the policyholder passes away before providing all the details about the policy, it can be troublesome for you to find the information required to make a claim. This scenario will lead to death benefits being added to unsolicited insurance funds. If you’ve recently faced the death of a parent, spouse or child, it can be very confusing to decide where to start. In this article, you will learn how to find a life insurance policy of a deceased person.

Why Life Insurance Benefits Go to Waste:

Life insurance benefits go to waste for several reasons:

• Sometimes the recipients do not know if a policy exists or if they are registered as a beneficiary in the policy.
• They may have shifted to a new address and the insurance company couldn’t find them.
• They may not be aware of how to sue if the insurance company goes out of business and transfers the scheme to another party.
• If the policyholder shifts to a new place and does not present a change of address, it will be hard for the life insurance company to find them and they might lose contact.
• When the policyholder dies, the insurance company is not informed about the same, which leads to unclaimed death benefits.

How to Find out if Your Loved one has Purchased An Insurance Policy?

If you’re not sure whether one has bought a life insurance policy, you can look for evidence in the following places:

• Bank statements: The deceased probably paid for his/her policy before he/she died. You might find information regarding the life insurance policy payments in his/her statements.
• Employer: If the policyholder was working till the time of death, he/she might have opted for group life insurance. The former company of the deceased might be able to provide some useful information.
• Financial guide: Your loved one may also have contacted a lawyer to write a will or discussed other important plans. They might be aware of any present life insurance coverage.
• Organisations: If the deceased had become a part of a veterans organisation or some other group, the organisation might have presented insurance alternatives and can be in a position to provide you information about an ongoing policy.
• Private files: If the policyholder stored crucial documents, then it will become easy for you to find files regarding an active life insurance policy that they own.

Once you’re able to confirm that the deceased had coverage or not, the next step always should be to find a copy of the insurance settlement. But before that, it is important to know that who can claim life insurance benefits.

Who Can Claim for Policy Coverage?

Beneficiaries must file a claim after the policyholder has passed away, but only a family member, lawyer or trustee has the right to claim for the policy. A mortuary can also do this after the proceeds cover the costs of the funeral. The benefits of the life insurance policy will only be enjoyed by the beneficiaries, even if anyone else is filing the claim.

The documents you submit while filing a claim differs from company to company. These are some of the important documents that you may need to submit:

• Name of the Mortuary
• Birth date and death date
• Reason of death

How to Find the Policy Document of the Life Insurance?

It might take some research to find a copy of the lost life insurance scheme; however, the coverage report could have all the facts you want for filing a claim, including:

• Information about the insurance company
• Scheme number
• Name of the recipients
• Total amount

However, if you come to know that you are one of the beneficiaries of the policy but don’t possess a copy of it, there are a few more ways to find out the policy details:

Get in Touch with the Insurance Company

If you are already aware of which insurance company issued the scheme, get in touch with it directly. The insurance company must have all the information about the policy on paper. You should be prepared to prove yourself as one of the beneficiaries (normally with an ID that includes your driver’s license). You must also possess the death certificate of the policyholder to prove that he/she is dead.

The Unnamed Life insurance directory

The Insurance Authority of the UAE and a few other insurance departments have come together to create services that assist customers in finding missing life insurance policies easily.\

• Insurance department: Some states allow you to look for coverage with the help of their insurance department website online. They have additionally listed information of each branch in case you need to speak to them via phone.
• Scheme Locator Service: This tool was created by the Insurance Authority of the UAE. This research tool demands information like your current address, relation with the policyholder, etc. It then looks into its database to find the same kind of policies.
• Missing Money website: This website is backed by the Insurance Authority of the UAE. On this website, you can find all the information on unclaimed policies in the order of the state.
• NAUPA: National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators’ very own tool permits you to look for unclaimed funds statewide.

It usually takes a lot of time to get a response from the insurance companies. According to the Insurance Authority of the UAE, it can take up to 95 days for the insurance companies to reply to a claim request. If you are one of the beneficiaries, you will be approached directly.

Contact the Policyholder’s financial guides

Someone who recommended the policyholder on financial subjects or assisted them in managing their property — consisting of an attorney, financial advisor or business partner, etc. might be able to provide you with all the information of the life insurance policy the deceased has signed up for. Likewise, if the policyholder has opted for life insurance via an agent, then you should contact that agent to get more information about it.

Copy of the Life Insurance Policy

You should look into all the holdings of the policyholder, which include safes, bedrooms, and even the basement to find any evidence of the life insurance policy. You must check your loved one’s mail so that you may discover any message from the life insurance company they have invested in. You should always remember that a term life insurance policy can last up to 30 years and whole insurance schemes last till the policyholder is alive. You may need to inspect again in documents to find more information related to the duration of the insurance policy.

If the policyholder has saved the record in a secured deposit of their bank, you’ll need to get an order from the court to show that the policyholder has passed away and you shall be allowed to access the secured deposit contents.

Search Virtual storage

If you can access the policyholder’s laptop or phone, then chances are you are probably going to locate the information related to the policy saved on their cloud storage or email. 

If the life insurance policy information is saved in a folder that requires a password, then it will be very difficult for you to recover it but as far as the server-based file is concerned, you can present the court order in front of the server company. This is the only way they can help you out.

Evaluate Earnings Tax Returns

Look over the policyholder’s tax returns for the past years to check if there is any money paid to the insurance company. Insurance companies charge interest on the scheme loans and also offer interest on various policies.

It’s no longer unusual for humans to have no idea that they’re one of the beneficiaries of their loved one’s insurance coverage. The terms of the policy can last for many years and the beneficiaries might change after a while. If your loved one passed away and you’re uncertain who the beneficiaries are, then it is better to do thorough research to make sure that you are not missing out on policy benefits.

If you’re fortunate enough, the coverage employer will help you know if you’re one of the beneficiaries or not. Many insurers now frequently evaluate their data towards the Death Master File, which stores a list of deaths of Social Security Number holders. Many states use the DMF service to discover unclaimed policies. If an insurance company finds a lost policy, they’ll look for the given addresses of beneficiaries and make them aware of the policy.