Do You Wonder If Your Dead Relative Left an Unknown Insurance Policy?

There is a way to find out if your relative left an unknown insurance policy.

A lot of our LifeCycle clients have spouses, parents and other relatives who die without doing appropriate lifecycle planning. Sometimes, spouses, grandkids, kids, nieces, nephews, and such get estranged from their grandparents, parents, aunts, and uncles. And then, some older person relative dies and everyone suddenly remembers the dead relative always said something about having a $1,000,000 life insurance policy — “somewhere, out there, beneath the pale moonlight.”

Oftentimes, a widowed spouse does not want her dead spouses’ children to know about any life insurance that may be paying a benefit as a result of the death.

There is a way to independently find out if a dead relative left an insurance policy.

All you have to do is (1) be a qualified inquirer and (2) submit an application along with a filing fee to MIB Group, Inc.

MIB is a member-owned corporation comprised of life and health insurance companies that has operated on a not-for-profit basis in the United States and Canada since 1902. In addition MIB’s provision of underwriting services to MIB’s member life and health insurance companies to assess an individual’s risk and eligibility during the underwriting of life, health, disability insurance polices, MIB is a nationwide specialty consumer reporting agency under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) that provides US consumers with the rights, protections and privileges available under FCRA.

In addition to all that services to the living applicants for insurance, MIB also will send a policy locator report (PLR) for a reasonable fee that may be able to identify application activity on underwritten life insurance policies taken by MIB’s 420 U.S. and Canadian member companies.

MIB’s policy locator reports has some limitations. PLRs provide only search results for life insurance applications and do not indicate whether any life insurance was ever issued and/or actually in force at time of the insured’s passing, or whether any benefits are payable. Knowing what agency processed an application, however, will get qualified researchers most of the way to finding out whether or not an actual policy was in force on the date of the decedent’s death.

If application activity is identified, the report will tell you

• the name of the company,
• the date the application was submitted, and
• the appropriate contact information for your follow-up activity to see if a policy was issued and remains in-force.

For MIB PLR purposes, “application activity” means:

• an application for new coverage,
• an application to modify existing coverage or to reinstate coverage or
• an application for benefits on a policy (for example, a claim for waiver of premium).

An MIB PLR has a few other limitations:

• MIB covers only underwritten life insurance applications taken at MIB member companies from January 1, 1996 to the present.
• MIB does not cover the following types of life insurance:
  • Policies in lower face amounts ($100,000 and below)
  • Guaranteed issue and employer-based life insurance that is not individually underwritten
  • Military issued life insurance.
• If a life insurance applications(s) is discovered, MIB’s data does not include beneficiary information.

You should receive a PLR within 21 business days after MIB receives your completed, written application.

Who Can Request a PLR?

Eligible Requestors include: Executors or administrators of a decedent’s estate are permitted to order a report of life insurance application activity. If no executor or administrator has been appointed, then a surviving spouse or the decedent’s closest surviving relative may be eligible to order a Policy Locator Service report.

In addition, attorneys who represent an Eligible Requestor may submit a request on the client’s behalf, provided he or she is a duly admitted attorney who is authorized by the client to submit a request on his, her or its behalf and the client has authorized the attorney to receive the decedent’s Policy Locator Service report from MIB Solutions, Inc.

To submit a Policy Locator Service request, a requestor will need to mail the following to MIB Solutions, Inc.: