How Do I Find Out What Life Insurance Co. My Mom (who Died In ‘92) Had An Account With For Several Years?
Posted September 18, 2009 – 10:17 am in: structured settlements FAQMy mother was paying into life insurance for quite a few years, but a year or two before she died, she stopped payments. I was informed recently that those benefits should still have been paid to the beneficiaries. I need to know how I can look into this.
Tags: Account, Died, Find, Insurance, Life, Several, What, With, Years
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I participated in the death of the mother grieve over you. I hope you can get answers to your questions on my blog
It would be unlikely that the policy would be any good if she stopped paying. The ONLY exception to that is if it was a cash value policy and the cash values kept the policy afloat. That’s one reason why a term insurance policy isn’t the answer to everything.
Go through her bank records and see if you can locate the company and get information. You just want to see when the policy was officially termed, because if it was before death then you’d get nothing. But, if it lapsed for non-payment after death you’d have a valid claim.
Her executor or possibly you should be able to get her bank records for the last few years to see which company she paid premiums to. Visit her bank and ask what documents you need to show them to get her records.
If she had a whole life policy it will have some cash value. If she had a term policy, which is what most people have, the coverage stopped the month she made the last payment. There will be nothing to collect.
Who informed you that? I think they were making it up. Whoever told you that, that’s who you should look into it with.
HOWEVER. Generally, when you stop paying your insurance (like life insurance, or car insurance) it CANCELS. If you have the accident on your car insurance after it cancels, they don’t pay. If you die, after your life insurance cancels, they don’t pay.
If she had this through work, and stopped working, and didn’t pay for it, it cancels.
You find out who the life insurance company was, by going through her cancelled checks or valuable papers. It’s going to cost you A LOT of money to get appointed executor of her estate now, 15 years later, then convince her old banks to do the research on cancelled checks.
What kind of insurance was it, who informed you of this and what is the reliability of that source? If it was term insurance or employer group coverage, the coverage ceased when premium payment ceased. Even if it was a whole life policy, ceasing payments means the policy would have been canceled.
You can check with MIB. All life insurance goes through them. There is no guarantee though.
Good Luck.