life insurance precidence

[slreno]

What is the name of your state (ohio)?

ok this is what has happened and what we was told by met life. we are just wanting to get some sort of verfication on this via a legal rep like you guys here

heres the situation.
father in law passed away and his estate is in probate. we found out that he has a group life policy through chrysler that had a named beneficiary of his deceased wife and he has no other widow. met life has told us they follow fegli laws and that they use a presedence to the way they pay out to keep benefit from going into estate and probate... and they said
1. survivng souse
2. survivng chilld (adopted or from a previous mariage) question? does this include step children? dont think it does?
3. paerents and so on.. not going to finish the presidence because my wife is blood daughter and she has no adopted bros. or sisters by blood or adopted.

what we are trying to figure out is.. my wifes step sister is executor of estate and has been doing some finageling behind our backs and is being very shady to some things.. like tell us she has taken care of met life policy and it has to go into estate. executor reported the death of wifes father45 days ago and has got the claim form from metlife and has NEVER returned it says metlife. we are sure there is a shady reason behind this but not sure why. we are thinking that if death is reported and no claim is made and sits idle after reported for a certain amount of time it will go into estate at that point?

1. can someone verify that metlife group life policy uses the fegli law and paysout in that presidence.
2. also if it sits idle with no claims after death is reported does it auto go into estate?
thanks

 

[anteater]

1. can someone verify that metlife group life policy uses the fegli law and paysout in that presidence.
2. also if it sits idle with no claims after death is reported does it auto go into estate?

My initial gut reaction to your questions is: Who cares? You said that Met told you who is eligible to receive the proceeds. Why hasn't your wife filed a claim?

Ignore the stepsister. File the claim. Get the proceeds.

 

[slreno]

she surely is. she just found all of this out yesterday and is waiting on claim form from us mail ... it will be filled out and sent in as soon as she gets it.

we are just trying to get some clarification on the payout procedure because of what metlife told us and we are reading on web that NO it will go into estate? it is so confusing because i have read that fegli is a federal employee procedure but also that some life policys also use this procedure even though its not federal employee plan?

thanks for the time

 

[anteater]

Life insurance is governed by a contract. The contract provisions govern who gets the proceeds.

It is true, that in most individual life insurance policies, if the primary and any contingent beneficiaries are predeceased, the proceeds would be payable to the estate. But even that is not 100% certainty.

And many, if not most, group policies specify eligibility to receive the proceeds in the contract.

 

[slreno]

ok thanks for your time..
just called metlife to verify, they said they do FOR SURE follow fegli rules for pay out and it cannot be touched by probate or estate unless there is NO surviving beneficiarys and that is the only way it would go into estate or probate...

also found out step children cannot mess with policy benefits unless they are legally adopted or legally fostered.
thanks for time