Tracking Down Old Life Insurance Policies
- 1). Look through any files that the deceased kept. You may find the yearly statements of policy value from the insurer. If you find these and can get the company name, you will be able to claim your benefits.
- 2). Check tax returns for the last two years to see if the deceased made any note of interest on a life insurance policy or money paid to life insurance companies. (See Reference 1) You may not find a company's contact information through this method, but at least you will know that the policy exists and did not lapse.
- 3). Look for cancelled checks that the deceased wrote. (See Reference 1) You may find the checks with the company's name.
- 4). Use a government-provided website like the one in the Resources section to find the company's contact information if you find a cancelled check with only the company name. These websites match up life insurance company names with addresses, and provide a phone number to call if you find that the life insurance company has merged or gone out of business. (See Resource 1)
- 5). Check to see if the state has your money. Sometimes, if a life insurance company cannot find the beneficiary, it turns over the relevant funds to the state. Some states, like New York, have websites you can search to see if you can claim any benefits from the "lost money" pile (See Resource 2). Insurance companies will rarely turn over the money instead of keeping it, but it's worth a shot.
- 6). Contact the Medical Information Bureau (See Resource 3). The Medical Information Bureau has a policy locator service that will search the decedent's name in a database of 170 million policies. They will also match the decedent's name against applications, so you can even find all the companies where your loved one applied for a policy. This search is likely to turn up any missing policies and will probably give you good information with which to start looking.