If you are the beneficiary of a life insurance policy and the insured has expired, you must contact the insurance company in order to collect the death benefits payable under the life insurance policy belonging to the insured. If the insured who has expired is a loved one, you may not be in a position to apply your mind as you would normally do. This article will try and help you with the process of collecting the death benefits.
The first thing you need to understand is what insurance company to contact. This is easy. Just take a look at the policy. The name of the insurance company will be right on top. Once you know which insurance company to contact, you must contact the company and provide a death certificate to the company. You will be required to provide proof of identity and submit an application form. Once you submit your application form, most insurance companies will pay out in anywhere from a few days to a few weeks depending on whether there is suspicion of fraud. In most cases, you will quickly have the money that you need to finance the funeral arrangements and take care of matters very quickly.
Now if the policy has lapsed, then you might be in for a rough ride. If the death of the insured is the cause of lapse, then in most cases, the insurance company will pay you the death benefits without any fuss. When the insured passes away, the policy becomes payable. Any automatic payments that the company may have withdrawn since the maturation of the policy should be refunded to the estate of the deceased, and the policy becomes payable immediately upon presentation of a certificate of death to prove the date of demise of your loved one. If the policy lapsed due to non-payment of the premium by the insured, you may be able to collect a lower death benefit. But this is subject to the guidelines and policies of the insurance company. At times if may be possible that you were named the beneficiary but you were not aware of it until many years after the death of the insured. In such cases, you will have to follow the same procedure. There is no statute of limitations of collection of insurance benefits. All you need to do is contact the insurance company and they will guide you. If unfortunately the insurance company has gone under, you will not be able to get the death benefits. It may sound unfair but that’s the law.
