Ideally, the beneficiaries of a life insurance policy should have all the mandatory data to register a claim. Unfortunately, this is not the case: more than a billion dollars have gone unclaimed in the United States because beneficiaries are unaware that they are indexed in an insurance policy or unable to locate the proper documents.
In 2011, the National Conference of Insurance Legislators created the Unclaimed Life Insurance Benefits Act, which standardized procedures for unclaimed policies and required insurers to periodically check the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File database to identify deceased policyholders and their beneficiaries.
However, this is not a foolproof approach and millions of benefits remain unpaid each year. Fortunately, there are a few tactics to find out if you’re not paying the life insurance bills you’re owed.
To study an express life insurance policy, you’ll need the person’s official death certificate, which includes their full legal name, Social Security number, and dates of birth and death.
If you have an insurance policy, you will also need your driver’s license, passport, or other government-issued ID to determine your identity when you file a claim.
If you have an idea of who named you a beneficiary and which insurer you had a policy with, start your search here. Otherwise, reviewing monetary documents such as tax returns and bank statements can provide clues. (You can even use a font kept in a safe. )
If you had someone employed at the time of your death, your company’s HR branch could possibly tell you if you had corporate life insurance or supplemental life insurance.
Friends, family, co-workers, former employers, and even clergy can also be a helpful resource, or at least direct you to lawyers, accountants, or other professionals with applicable information.
Finding a lost life insurance policy can be a good motivator to decide if you need coverage yourself. If you do need a policy, CNBC Select recommends Guardian as a standout for its affordability, flexibility and high financial strength rating.
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Guardian offers a variety of sources, adding temporal, integer, and universal. It also offers term insurance policies that can be changed to whole or universal life insurance policies, as well as strong monetary strength ratings.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) website has an online form that is available to those who believe they are beneficiaries of an unclaimed life insurance policy. The locator has provided consumers with more than $6. 7 billion in benefits since 2016, according to NAIC. .
To use the service, you will need to have the legal call from the alleged policyholder, their social security number, and the dates of birth and death.
Information submitted to the NAIC is submitted to participating insurance companies, which search their records for open policies. The process can take several months.
Life insurance corporations use Social Security Administration records to determine if a policyholder is deceased. They also look for beneficiaries, but if they don’t, the budget is declared unclaimed or “inactive. “
Each state has other regulations about how long it takes for a policy to be considered inactive; according to the Organization of Unclaimed Property Professionals, that time frame is usually between 3 and five years. (In Arizona and North Dakota, the dormant era is one year. )
If it’s been that long, you can look for unclaimed budget in the state where the deceased last resided or where they purchased their policy.
The National Association of Unclaimed Property Managers’ Missing Money site allows you to search multiple state databases for unclaimed budgets, not only for insurance payments, but also for cash from app companies, retailers, and others. This is a flexible service, and users can start the claims procedure instantly.
Several life insurance corporations have online insurance policy search tools, such as John Hancock, MetLife, and New York Life. If you are a beneficiary of a U. S. military veterans insurance policy, you will be able to protect the benefits of your insurance policy. The U. S. Department of Veterans AffairsIt has a searchable database.
If you find out that you are a beneficiary of a life insurance policy, you will need to file a claim to get your payment. You will need multiple copies of the user’s death certificate. You can get them from the important statistics of the state where the user died.
You can either work with an insurance agent to contact the insurer or do it directly yourself. In addition to the death certificate, you will probably need to provide identification and details about yourself to complete the claim form before you submit it online or through the mail.
You’ll also want to decide how you want to earn your benefits: in most cases, either as a lump sum or as an annuity paid from an investment account.
There’s no deadline to file a life insurance claim but the faster you file, the sooner you’ll get a payout. In most states, insurers have up to 30 days to review a claim and send payment.
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If you think someone named you as a beneficiary on their life insurance policy, there are easy-to-use online tools that can guide your search. In some cases, you may need to gather documentation first and speak with a family member or representative.
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