Can a life insurance policy beneficiary be changed after death of insured?

[Mediocrates]

Jurisdiction

Colorado

Long story short, I have found myself listed pretty much as sole beneficiary of my fathers' wife's estate. There is a life insurance policy that appears to also be left to me, but a sibling of deceased is making a claim that she intended to change the beneficiary just prior to death. She has emails from deceased's account to her HR rep asking to make a change dated the day prior to death, but the change was not actually made. Now sibling is enlisting a lawyer to try and get this change made in the policy, is this something the insurance company would do? I'm trying to get all the information about this situation still, unsure how I should proceed. Death occured in Colorado, will was written and witnessed in Illinois.

 

[cbg]

I work in the Benefits office of my employer. Until quite recently we retained the beneficiary records of our employer-sponsored life insurance. This was several years ago and in a different state but for what it's worth.

I took a call one day from an employee asking for a life insurance beneficiary change form. I emailed it to him same day. It was a Friday.

On Monday, someone from another part of the office came over and asked whether or not he had indicated who he wanted to change the beneficiary to. I said no, just that he needed to change it and wanted the proper form.

Turns out that he was killed in an accident over the weekend.His sister found the new form, which he had printed out but not yet completed.

Without any idea who he had intended as the new beneficiary, we were forced to pay out to the original one. I have absolutely no memory of what relationship the original beneficiary was to our employee and that might have made a difference. I don't process death claims and I don't know what they might have done to investigate what his wishes were. I know that, knowing he wanted to make a change, there was great reluctance to pay out to the original named beneficiary but they had no choice.

State law might matter. I'm not saying you are guaranteed an identical, or even similar, result. I'm just giving you my experience in a related situation.

 

[Tax Counsel]

Now sibling is enlisting a lawyer to try and get this change made in the policy, is this something the insurance company would do?

Generally the way it works is that the policy holder has to do everything necessary on his/her end to change the beneficiary before the policy holder dies. If he or she does that and it's just an issue that the insurance company didn't get it processed before death then the change should still be made. But if the policy holder didn't complete everything he/she needed to do then the change does not get made, even with e-mails saying a change was intended. After all, one may still change his/her mind prior to submitting all the paperwork needed for the change.

 

[adjusterjack]

Now sibling is enlisting a lawyer to try and get this change made in the policy, is this something the insurance company would do?

No.

unsure how I should proceed.

How you proceed is to call the claims department of the life insurance company, get a claim form and submit it with a certified copy of the death certificate and any other documents required by the claims department (if any) and get your money.

 

[zddoodah]

I have found myself listed pretty much as sole beneficiary of my fathers' wife's estate. There is a life insurance policy that appears to also be left to me

Pretty much? Appears to also be? Are you or are you not the sole beneficiary? If not, what exactly is the beneficiary designation?

If so, have you submitted your claim for payment to the insurer that issued the policy?

a sibling of deceased is making a claim that she intended to change the beneficiary just prior to death.

To whom is this sibling making this claim?

Now sibling is enlisting a lawyer to try and get this change made in the policy

Does "is enlisting" mean that the sibling has hired a lawyer? Or does it mean that he/she said he/she intends to hire a lawyer?

is this something the insurance company would do?

No one here can intelligently predict what some unknown insurance company will or won't do in response to evidence we haven't seen.

Out of curiosity, what is the value of the policy?