I’m going through my dad’s papers and found some old life insurance policies. I’m calling the insurance companies and have already discovered that two small policies are still valid.
I’m having difficulty with two old Prudential policies. Customer service could find the policies and it sounds as if they’re still valid but my dad is not the owner of the policies. They said they need to speak to the owner of the policy. That is not shown anywhere on the pages and pages of documents I have. Dad is the one who signed the application. My mom is not the owner, either, although she is the beneficiary. Customer service said they can’t tell me.
How can I find out who the owner is?? I Googled the question without success. They are not huge policies but they would be enough to cover funeral service expenses.
If you have the policy numbers, then a local Prudential life insurance agent may be able to help out.
Typically, the owner of an insurance policy is required to sign the application as is the insured.
The date of the signature may be helpful in determining whether or not your dad was married at this time & whether or not there is a chance that your dad’s parents own the policy.
The owner of a life insurance policy must have an “insurable interest” in the insured at the time the policy is underwritten.
Is there an agent’s name on any of the paperwork? You can search for agents at tdi.texas.gov. More specifically at https://txapps.texas.gov/NASApp/tdi/TdiARManager. Many agents keep their insurance license after they retire “just in case.” Of course, if these are older policies, then the agent may no longer be living.
I took the suggestion of @Publisher - thanks!!! I found the nicest local Prudential agent who helped me figure everything out. Turns out the owner is a trust in my mom’s name, so she gave him permission to talk to me. The WEIRD thing is that on three of the four policies, my dad is listed as the insured and the beneficiary!! The original application clearly shows Mom as the beneficiary, so somebody screwed up. The agent has already emailed me the form to change the beneficiary. He said that once Dad passes he would be glad to help us get the benefits. I’m so impressed!
The issue about ownership has to do with estate taxes. Not all that long ago, for example in 2000, the estate tax exemption was only 675,000. Today it is $11M.
The point is that insurance proceeds payable to beneficiaries are included in your taxable estate if you are the “owner” of the policy. Having the policy ownership assigned to the trust removes it from the estate, and consequently removes the proceeds from estate taxation. Today that’s likely not that important since the exemption has risen, so the estate is not likely to have to pay any estate taxes anyway.
But back when the exemption was less than many home prices, it made sense to have your policies “owned” by a trust. It does sound like the insurer screwed up recording the documents.
That’s really odd, @wangtang, as Life Insurance companies are highly regulated and are most are careful to always be within those regulations. Though it’s totally likely you can get a $10/hour person who does not understand the rules or does not understand an old policy, then an agent is helpful as they know the right words to help the CS rep be allowed to help you.
For example, the PRU policy above, it’s likely against the rules for the CS rep to give out confidential policy info, like the name of the trust, to someone not the a legally interested party. Imagine if your annoying brother in law could call and get your details. Really the OP needed the agent to translate for the front line person.
I hope you were able to settle your claim to your satisfaction without having to pay an attorney!
In MA, if things like bank accounts and life insurance are unclaimed after a certain period they go into the treasurers dept ( not sure of dept). One can then search by their name or the name of someone else. If you found something under your Dad’s name, then you could prove your connection.
So glad you made progress, ML! It’s good you investigated.
We had trouble dealing with Prudential this summer after my mother died. Her policies were very old (approx 1960), prior to current computerization. At that time the phone clerks were all working from home…terrible audio, dropped calls. My sister and I eventually both received checks with spelling errors on our married surnames, despite the fact that we were named on the policies; had to be reissued. (We had originally typed in all that info at website, but the automated form got rejected due to age of policy.)
My father had a pension check coming from Prudential. They were not nice to work with.
I’ll give a shout out to Mutual of Omaha. The agent was really helpful and my mother had a check for the minimum amount within a week, and then for an additional amount when they received proof that it was an accidental death.
The really old policies seem to be complicated, the other complicated situation is that so many companies were purchased by others, especially in the '90s, and computers just don’t always mesh the details perfectly. I’ve definitely had to escalate a few situations to someone with higher order computer access.
I tried to check on a very old Life Insurance Policy in my deceased mother’s name. I had to discover which company bought out the original many years prior. The new company would not even talk to me unless I could prove I was executor of the estate. There was no executor of her estate. It wasn’t large enough, and anything she had went to all siblings via POD or as beneficiaries. She named me executor in her will. Not good enough for them. Since there was no probate, no court officially named me as executor.
It doesn’t help the company if there really is a policy. Once the person dies, the money is not theirs. If there is no claim, the money escheats to the state and then is distributed according to the state laws (or the state keeps it, not the insurance company).
Send a claim in to the company if you have a copy of the old policy. That puts them on notice that’s she’s dead and therefore they need to resolve all policies.
When my father died a few years ago, I ran into a website that allowed me to put in his name and other into (SSN, DOB) and the states did a search. Not all did, but I did receive a few emails that he either had no policies in that state or the info about policies (all I already knew about).
I had a similar estate to handle for my mother (smallish assets, most with co-owners or beneficiaries/POD defined; me as executor in will). So PDF of will was usually enough to get the ball rolling. However, there was some stock that had no POD defined.
So I had to get a Letter of Testamentary to legally prove I was executor. In CO that was pretty easy. I filed a form at the county courthouse, paid $195 and waited 2 weeks to receive document in the mail. The phone helpers were VERY nice, and they said only about half the people use a lawyer, so I figured I’d give it a go on my own. Admittedly CO has a reputation for simple probate processes.