When a loved one dies, one task that’s up to the executor and the decedent’s heirs is notifying the issuer of the decedent’s life insurance policy. Life insurance can provide a relatively quick inflow of vital cash. However, it may be hard to determine how much insurance the decedent had, and where those policies are.
A thorough search of the decedent’s personal financial papers may turn up one or more policies. Then it’s a relatively simple matter of notifying the insurance copy and verifying the death of the insured individual. However, other policies may exist so you should follow up on any clues to their possible existence:
* Did the decedent have any dealings with a life insurance agent or company? The same individual or company providing health or disability or Medigap or long-term care insurance also might have provided life insurance. Check to see if such coverage is in force.
* Did the decedent belong to a union or any other group that might have provided insurance? See if there was some coverage from some group insurance.
* If the decedent was still working, contact the employer to see if any coverage was still in force. A retiree also may have had coverage from a former employer.
Of course, you can look at the decedent’s checkbook to see if he or she had paid any life insurance premiums recently. Contact the decedent’s attorney, accountant, investment advisor, banker, and business associates to see if any of them are aware of life insurance you have not discovered.
