Life insurance companies issue a lot of paperwork. Call your state's Office of the State Commissioner. Ask a family member's financial advisor. If you know which life insurance company issued the policy, contact them directly.
Be prepared to prove that you are the listed beneficiary (usually with identification such as your driver's license number or SSN) and have the death certificate available to prove that the insured person has died. Policies can last for decades and beneficiary designations can change over a person's lifetime. There are several things you can do to find out if someone left a life insurance policy when they died. Once you complete an online form in the policy locator tool, the NAIC will ask participating insurance companies to review their records to see if they have a life insurance policy in the name of the deceased person you indicated on the form.
Maria Filindra is a financial advisor, a health insurance agent with a Life& license in California, and a member of the Policygenius Financial Review Board. If the deceased purchased home or car insurance through an insurance agent, the agent can find out if they had other insurance policies. Sometimes, even in spite of every possible effort, finding an insurance policy when a loved one has died can seem overwhelming. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), a group that represents the top insurance regulators in each of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia and the U.
Amanda Shih is a licensed life, disability and health insurance expert and former editor of Policygenius, where she covered life insurance and insurance for invalidity. It's not uncommon for people to have no idea that they are beneficiaries of someone's life insurance policy. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) life insurance policy locator service, a free online tool, can help you locate life insurance policies. However, if the insured dies before telling them where to find a copy of their policy (or if a policy exists), they may not have all the information they need to file a claim.
The deceased's employer can help with the next steps if life insurance was part of an employer-sponsored group policy. When the owner of a life insurance policy dies, the beneficiaries receive a death benefit from the insurance company. If you know that you're the beneficiary of a life insurance policy but don't have a copy of it, there are several ways to find a lost policy.
Life insurance policies
aren't usually in the public record, but they can be found in places that accumulate records of unclaimed money in each state.Online tools, such as NAIC's life insurance policy locator service, can help you locate a missing policy.
