How to Find Out If Someone Had Life Insurance

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It happens more than you would think: a loved one passes, the family is sure a life insurance policy existed, but no one can find it. Benefits go unclaimed every year for this reason. Here is a clear, mostly free way to search, step by step.

Step 1: Work the paper trail at home

Most policies leave a footprint. Check:

• Personal files, a home safe, or a safe deposit box
• Recent mail and email for premium notices or annual statements
• Bank and credit card statements for payments to an insurance company
• Tax returns, which may show policy activity
• An address book or phone contacts for an agent or advisor

Do this alongside closing a deceased person's accounts so nothing gets missed.

Step 2: Ask the people who would know

• Employers, current and former: many people have group life cover through work and forget it
• Their financial advisor, accountant, or attorney
• Their bank or credit union: some sell or bundle small policies
• Any union, professional association, or group like AARP

Step 3: Use the free NAIC Policy Locator

• What it is: a free tool from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners
• How it works: you submit one request, and participating insurers search their records for policies naming the deceased
• If found: the insurer contacts you directly, if you are entitled to the information

You will need the deceased person's legal name, Social Security number, date of birth, and date of death, plus your contact details and relationship to them. You usually need to be a spouse, executor, or close relative. Note the NAIC holds no policy details itself, so if nothing is found or you are not the beneficiary, you may not hear back.

Step 4: Check unclaimed money and paid databases

• State unclaimed property office: unpaid benefits eventually get turned over to the state when insurers cannot find a beneficiary
• MIB Group policy locator: searches records of applications from the past couple of decades, for a small fee

What you need to make a claim

• A certified copy of the death certificate
• The policy details
• The insurer's completed claim form, submitted as the beneficiary

Acting for the estate rather than as a named beneficiary? The executor role matters, see executor of estate duties. For timing, see how long life insurance takes to pay out.

The bottom line

• Do not give up after checking one drawer
• Work the paper trail, call the people who would know, then use the free NAIC locator and unclaimed property searches
• Policies worth real money are reunited with families this way every year