Beneficiary Questions about life insurance...

[trueviking]

What is the name of your state? Illinois

My father passed away and his hand-written, unnotorized will left me $100, my sister a car and his wife everything else. My sister, myself and the wife are named as beneficiaries on his life insurance policy. The wife is appealing to get part of the money left to my sister and myself. Is she legally entitled to part of our money if we are names as beneficiaries by my father? The insurance company cannot disburse our money until the appeal is settled. Can she sue us to pursue this issue further? What are our rights as beneficiaries?

 

[Betty]

What is the name of your state? Illinois

My father passed away and his hand-written, unnotorized will left me $100, my sister a car and his wife everything else. My sister, myself and the wife are named as beneficiaries on his life insurance policy. The wife is appealing to get part of the money left to my sister and myself. Is she legally entitled to part of our money if we are names as beneficiaries by my father? The insurance company cannot disburse our money until the appeal is settled. Can she sue us to pursue this issue further? What are our rights as beneficiaries?

I assume you mean part of the life ins. money. The proceeds should go to the beneficiaries named in the policy & for whatever % they were to get or equally if no % indicated. Whenever someone is contesting the payment to another person or persons, the ins. co. has to investigate. If they cannot determine for some reason how the proceeds should be distributed, they will have a court hold them & have the court make the decision as to the distribution. She can sue for the money but that doesn't mean she will win. I'm assuming/hoping your father didn't do a change of beneficiary on the life ins. to wife only.

 

[trueviking]

There were two policies, a Primary and a Supplimental (I believe thats what it was called). The wife is 50% on both, and my sister and I are 25% each on both (making up the other 50%). The last change to any of the policies was in 2001 when my father made the beneficiaries the percentages I just mentioned. The wife is the one appealing the insurance, and my sister and I hadn't even known about the policies until my sister was contacted by the insurance company. We believe the wife is appealing because the will stated she was to get all monies, but from everything we've seen/read/heard, life insurance monies wouldn't be covered by that statement because life insurance monies aren't considered part of the estate.

 

[anteater]

.. We believe the wife is appealing because the will stated she was to get all monies....

If that is her only basis, you and sister should be in good shape.

 

[trueviking]

If that is her only basis, you and sister should be in good shape.

We believe that to be her only basis. Apparently she is already on her second appeal. The insurance company has already informed us that they rejected the first appeal, as nothing applies to the scenario. I'm just worried that with her appealing this now, that if the appeals don't go through, she will try to come back and sue us for the money later, however, I don't see what legal footing she would have. Also, no one has said how many appeals she can file? Is there a limit, or could this get dragged out for a long time?

 

[Betty]

I would think they would have a limit on the # of appeals. If she does sue for the ins. money (you & your sisters), from the info in your post she should not get it.

 

[trueviking]

Thank you to those who took the time to reply.

Found out yesterday, that some of the information we were receiving is not accurate. My sister sat down and spoke with the Insurance company.

We found out that:

1.) A claim was made on the entire amount by the wife, which is holding up the money for us. Had we made the initial claim for the whole amount, we would have held up her money. Not knowing we were even on these policies, kind of hard for us to do, and we would have never tried to claim the full amount.

2.) The 2 appeals story was a lie fabricated by the wife, apparently trying to put pressure on us. According to the insurance, no appeal has yet been filed and she has 90 days from the time of the denial against claiming the full amount to file the appeal. She made her claim against the full amount probably in December.

3.) According to the insurance company and a lawyer my sister consulted, if she chooses to file a lawsuit for whatever reason, it would be between her and the insurance company, seeing as how they hold the policy and are the ones denying her claim.

As of right now, my sister and I have been told to just sit and wait for this to play out. We've been pretty much assured that the money will come to us, we just have to allow the 90 day period to expire.

Again, thank you for the replies. When this all first hit, I had no idea where to even go with questions, and it was nice to find a place to at least get some idea as to what to expect.

 

[Betty]

You're welcome for the help. You & your sister should make out fine - it's just that you will have to wait a bit for your money.