I am just advising from experience. I also work in the insurance field and did change ownership of my own life insurance policy. IF the policy is on the OP why can't he change it to himself as owner and take over the payments?
Because, he's the insured, NOT the owner. Being the insured has very little to do with ownership.
Say you borrow money from me, and I take out an insurance policy on your life as collateral. I'm paying the premiums on the policy. I have a vested interest in your life. Why should you then get to seize ownership and do what you want with the policy I've paid for when I now have a vested interest in you?
Similar in this case. Dad paid the premiums. It may have been dad's desire was Transfer on Death to the sister. Dad's policy, on his son, who he had a vested interest in. Dad CAN control who this policy goes to. Maybe it was TOD. Maybe it wasn't, and the bro can just send in dad's death cert and get the policy. But if Dad wanted to TOD to the sister, he could, and it's possible in this scenario. Dad paid the darn premiums! And if that's the case, no one can tells sis what to do with the policy on her bro.
As I indicated my father was owner of my policy, he paid all the premiums but after his death, I changed ownership to me and put my husband and kids as my beneficiaries. So why cant OP do this? Also we are all assuming that the policy was TOD! Also just because she is executor does not give her the right to ownership. OP needs to contact the insurance company as I indicated in my previous post!
I never ASSumed it was TOD. I mentioned it as a possibility, as it is. I have made suggestions of what to do in either case. You completely ruled out TOD in your answer.
In your scenario, which may NOT apply to this one, your father had no TOD on the policy, so you were able to claim ownership. We don't know whether or not there is TOD here, so we need to lean on the side of caution. If there is no TOD, yes, OP can change ownership to herself. It's been stated before in this thread.
I also never said as executor the sister had a right to ownership. She doesn't, unless she's the TOD owner, which seems likely since the beneficiary was changed after the death of the father.
The alternative is that this is a criminal matter because sister forged dad's name on the paperwork to get this changed. Whatever the case though, as far as ownership goes, he needs to contact the insurance co, make sure they know dad died, and see if they'll give him info and change ownership. Death certs help. But as said, if it's TOD, he's SOL.
also, when I purchased policies for both of my kids, I was listed as the owner because they were under the age of 1 when purchased. now that the kids are over 21, I transferred ownership to each child. So the best thing to do is talk to the Insurance Company! As everyone is assuming the policy had TOD noone is absolutely sure unless we all see the actual policy and read the fine print!
Again, I never assumed a thing. Reread my post. I never said it was one way or another.
It's all great and good you transferred ownership to your kids, but you can't take what happened in your case and just apply it to other people. You want to do that, go someplace else. As a volunteer here, I list the options as thoroughly as I can. At this point, until OP contacts the insurance company and comes back here, it's an unknown, but it's better that it be explained to OP what may be the case in this scenario. At this point, he's only has an inkling that the policy may still be in dad's name; he doesn't know what the case is, or who owns it, because he hasn't picked up the phone.
To go back to the original post, and add a detail I left out, bills (at least for my company) are in the name of the insured, not the actual owners/trustees/etc. This may not mean anything. He needs to call the insurance company and make sure dad was reported as being dead. This will indicate whether or not anything improper has been done, and if info is not disclosed to him, know he will know why.
