What happens if you believe you’re the beneficiary of someone’s life insurance policy, but then the life insurance company won’t take your call? What can you do? Estate planning and probate attorney Sarah Siedentopf discusses the different options.

Hi, I’m attorney Sarah Siedentopf. I’m an estate planning and probate attorney in Atlanta, Georgia.

Often, people call me with the issue that they believe they are a beneficiary of someone’s life insurance, but they’ve called up the life insurance company, after the person has passed away of course, and the life insurance company won’t talk to them. The question that they have is, “How do I make them talk to me?”

The answer is that the insurance company is going to talk to the actual named beneficiary. So if some point you were a beneficiary but then your name has been removed, they can no longer talk to you. The second person that they’re going to be able to talk to at this point is the executor or administrator of the estate. The executor of there’s a will, administrator if there is no will. So if you truly need the information you can apply to become executor or administrator of the estate, but the real base answer is if they’re not talking to you, you aren’t a current beneficiary.

So this is something that I get asked a lot and sometimes it is actually worthwhile to try to track things down by becoming the executor of the estate. But many times the answer is there just isn’t any good way to get information on when you were taken off, because it is the right of the insurance holder to change the beneficiaries at any time they want to. So unless there’s reason to believe that they were incompetent at the time they made the change,  it’s theirs, they get to do as they please. So if you have more questions on this topic, I’m always happy to talk to you. Please give me a call. Thanks.