(1) Is it possible that he actually did change the beneficiary from your name to hers because he might have realized that otherwise he didn’t have much of an estate and instead wanted to provide a substantial estate for his wife?
(2) What is the estimated total value of the assets being probated (the homes, the cars, bank accounts, and the ½ of the business)?
(3) What is the total amount of debt?
(4) Is the will being officially probated in court or not?
(5) What is the legal specialty (what area of law) of the attorneys that you are using—the ones you say you have been using for years? If they have no expertise in probate law, then they are outside the needed area of expertise and their advice can’t do you much good—you should be consulting with a probate attorney if the will is being submitted to probate court.
I’m not sure but I am wondering whether or not the insurance company might possibly give a copy of the beneficiary designation form to the executor of the estate if the executor asks them for it. The executor has legal authority to request information on most, if not all, financial documents in regard to the decedent’s estate. Even if it turns out that they won’t release it to the executor, when your attorney initiates an interpleader suit with the insurance company (where he asks the insurance company to let the courts determine who is entitled to the money) or instead will be filing a separate civil lawsuit against the spouse for forgery/fraud, at some point during the discovery process the surviving spouse will be asked to provide the information about the insurance company, so that aspect is something that you don’t need to be particularly concerned about right now until you have retained your own attorney. Additionally, you could pay a $75 fee to
MIB to have a policy search done through the top 400 insurance companies in US (but the search could take about 2-3 months to complete) and/or also order copies of your father’s monthly bank account statements for the past 2-3 years to see if he was paying monthly premiums to the insurance company. YOU NEED TO FIND YOUR OWN ATTORNEY AS SOON AS POSSIBLE SO THAT HE CAN NOTIFY THE INSURANCE COMPANY THAT HE INTENDS TO FILE AN INTERPLEADER ACTION TO PROTEST THE VALIDITY OF THE BENEFICIARY DESIGNATION FORM, so that the company will not automatically make a payout to the surviving spouse. This is a special area of the law known as “BAD FAITH INSURANCE”, so you need an attorney who has particular experience with interpleader actions or benefit disputes involving life insurance, OR a business law attorney. Please also check their credentials with the state bar association website to make sure you are not hiring someone with a background of criminal charges or a violation of ethics.
(6) Do you know any circumstances about how or when he may have purchased the policy, perhaps through his place of employment or would he have purchased it on his own, privately? Just wondering.
It’s uncertain from your posting whether or not you were implying that she had anything to do with your father’s death. If I were you, I would have a background check done on her through a private investigator to see if there is a criminal history or not. Also order a copy of her previous husband’s death certificate, obituary notice from the newspaper (to see if there is any indication as to whether there was possibly any mention of questionable circumstances regarding his death), and look at his probate file to see how his estate was handled.
I believe that your suspicions about her are valid and that you are right to fight this, and that it will probably come down to a battle of the penmanship experts in court, who will try to determine if the signature and THE other handwriting on the beneficiary designation form looks genuine or not! What a shame that many people do not realize that multiple beneficiaries can be named on a policy, and if he had wanted to, he could have designated both you AND his spouse to split this money.
(NOTE TO BETTY: Thank you so much for your helpful and knowledgeable responses to this message board. They help us understand the policies and procedures of how insurance companies operate.)
DANDY DON IN OKLAHOMA (
[email protected])
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