A family member died & left a life ins.how do I find out the company that has it?

& how do I collect from it?

You don't collect unless you are the Executor or you are the named benficiary. To find out where a policy is, you can go through the person's documents and banking or credit card records to find the paperwork or payments.

Adults really need to make sure that information on all their accounts are documented and in the hands of a responsible person, such as their Executor, their attorney, or perhaps their accountant or financial planner.

If the person was young enough to still be paying for the life insurance regularly, then at very least they will receive a bill when the premium is due.

First thing I would do would be to check with the decedents employer (if they worked) as many employers provide life insurance as an employee benefit.

I would also review the checkbook carefully there might be a premium payment to an insurance company. I say carefully because there might be only one payment per year.

Go through the decedents files you may find an actual policy but understand that finding the policy is no guarantee that it is still in force. Did the decedent have a safety deposit box? Often life insurance policies are kept there for safekeeping.

If you do find any policies, look for applications attached to them. The application will have a list of all other life insurance policies owned at the time the policy was applied for.

Call the insurance agent that wrote their home and auto insurance. That agent might have written a life policy or perhaps referred them to another agent.

If you think that the insurance was applied for in the last 13 years you can try this link http://www.mibsolutions.com/lost-life-insurance/ it is the Medical Information Bureau's policy locator service. Cost is $75 per search. However, in order to be eligible to submit a request you will have to be the executor of the estate, a surviving spouse or a child of the decedent. If none of these exist you may be eligible as a close family member or if you have a reasonable expectation that you would be a beneficiary.

As far as "collecting" from it you would have to be the beneficiary.

Good luck.

If at all possible, you find some piece of paper that mentions the name of the company, even if you have to go through the family member's garbage to find it. Anything at all, from a canceled check that was used to pay for the insurance to the actual policy to the application for the policy to a Christmas card from the insurance agent.

If there is no surviving paper with the information, then your next option is the medical information bureau (M.I.B.), which will, for a fee, tell where the person applied for insurance since the late 1990's. The policy might be too old to be included on that list, but it is at least a start. Try M.I.B. and see what happens. If they identify any companies, then contact those companies, one at a time, and ask them each if they actually issued a policy, or not, and whether it is still in force.

If that plan also fails, the only remaining option is to start contacting every insurance company in the world, one at a time, until you hit on the right one. I have never heard of this working.

If you do find the right company, then ask them for a claim form, fill out the claim form, and send it to them.

If they LEFT a life insurance policy, the company name is on the top of the policy. YOU cannot collect - you can only file a claim, and the named beneiciary gets paid. There's no "dibs" on life insurance money.

If you're asking, is there a database where you can plug their name in, the answer is no.

70% of Americans die without active life insurance in force, so the easiest place to start, is with whatever it is that makes you think they even HAVE life insurance.

The second easiest, is to go through the banking records. If they had insurance, they'd be paying for it, at least once a year, but usually once a month. You should see a cancelled check. If you're executor/administrator of the estate, you can get copies of all their cancelled checks for the past year, from their bank, and go through them. Be sure to check the safety deposit box at their bank, too.

Obviously, you need to check through their valuable papers at their home.

If they were employed at the time of death, call the HR department at their employer's, to see if there was any group life insurance.

If you suspect they had a prepaid policy, just change the mailing address to yours - if they DID have a paid up policy, once a year they'd be receiving a statement from the insurance company.

Again, if you're executor of the estate, you can pay $75 to http://www.mib.com/html/lost-life-insurance.html and they will tell you if any applications have been received on their lives, in the past 13 years. It only goes back 13 years, and you'll need to send them proof that you are administrator or executor of the estate.

Don't be worried about someone else "intercepting" your life insurance money. If you are the beneficiary of the policy, the insurance money gets mailed directly to you.

If you're not administrator or executor of the estate, AND a check doesn't show up to your mail one day, then legally you don't have access to the information - it's protected by the privacy laws. But you can always ASK the administrator/executor if there is life insurance, and who the beneficiary is.

Life insurance tends to run in families. Do you have life insurance? Your sibs? Your parents? Most people TELL family members, if there is life insurance. If none of the surviving family members have any life insurance, odds are, the deceased doesn't, either. That's your PERSONAL reminder. Go buy life insurance, and tell at least two different family members that you have it, and where you keep your valuable papers.

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