How Do I Search For My Uncle’s Funds Or A Life Insurance Policy?
Posted November 23, 2009 – 4:35 pm in: structured settlements FAQMy uncle was dislocated after Hurricane Katrina. We asked him to live with us but he refused being an elderly bachelor and thought he could live on his own. I was his only living next of kin and we were very close. Still, he has always been a loner. Last we heard from him, he had surgery and was moving in with a friend out of state. I have tried to locate him for months to see how he was doing with no luck. Imagine the surprise when I found out he passed away three months ago. A funeral was held then since he had a burial policy, arranged by another friend of his, an attorney. This man knew our number and address and never called. My uncle mentioned a life insurance policy a while back. How would I locate it? I am thinking that may be the reason I wasn’t notified of his death. Maybe his friend knows a way to collect. He isn’t trustworthy. Also, I am not sure of his assets if any since the storm? How would I locate them since I am the only next of kin?
Tags: Funds, Insurance, Life, Policy, Search, Uncles
3 Comments
Tips on how to find lost life insurance policies:
How to look for lost life insurance policies:
•Go through canceled checks or contact the insured’s bank for copies of old checks. Look to see to whom checks were made out. You just may find an insurance company.
•Ask those who may have known about the insured’s financial situation. Try their lawyer, banker or accountant. Also try their auto or home insurance agent. They may know where the insured went for life insurance.
•Contact the insured’s past employer. An employer may know of possible group insurance. The insured may have also purchased supplemental insurance through work.
•Keep in mind that there is no national database of lost life insurance policies.
Also, if the insured dies and three to five years later you, the beneficiary, still can’t find the policy. There’s a chance — though a slight one — that you can go to the state, rather than the company, to get the money.
Ron @ InsureMe http://www.insureme.com/landing.aspx?Ref…
Contact the insurance commission in the state he lived in.They are required by law to have any and all insurance policies he MIGHT have had.
OK, You have to go to court and get appointed executor of his estate, so you can go to his bank (yes, even though the branch was in new orleans, they’ll have the data backed up!) and get the balance information and/or checking account statements.
You’ll need to go through the old statements to find out what company he’d made payments to – maybe check the past three years. Then contact them.
Wills, once filed, are public records – so you should be able to go to the local probate office and see if there was a will filed for probate. The executor of the will would have been named in the will – and you can’t do a blessed thing about that. So if your uncle WANTED that guy to be executor, and named him as such, then, well, you’re sol. But if he named someone else, or died without a will, then you’ve got a potential legal battle on your hands, as far as which state’s inheritance laws will carry over, Louisiana, or the new residence.
ONLY the person named as beneficiary can collect the money on the life insurance policy. Also, the bank isn’t going to allow “the friend” to have any money in the account, without the executor agreement, so you don’t have to worry about those funds going AWOL, either.