beath benefits

[davis5]

north carolina

My mother past away december of 1999. she held a life insurance policy for over 10 years listing me and my children as beneficiaries and had never had any changes since she took it out. she was terminally ill and on life support the last week. after her death i found out that her insurance policy naming beneficiary was changed 3 days before her death leaving the money to her sister. the forms requesting the change were requested approx 3 weeks earlier and were sent to her sisters address so no one knew of the changes until after her death. the signature looks like it could or could not be my mothers.
we suspect that either my aunt forged the signature or had my mother sign it , not knowing what she was signing at the time due to the heavy medications she was on.
is there any recourse or statute of limitations. or is there any law regarding a time frame for changes such as this not being valid ?

 

[ALawyer]

Whle I do not know NC law my sense is that you are okay in terms of the statute of limitations. You'll need a lawyer to sue your family members and possibly the insurer, but once the money was paid out simply NOTIFYing the insurance company is not enough; if it was NOT paid out the insurance company would have deposited the money in court and let the beneficiaries battle it out.

 

[davis5]

thanks for the reply,
I hate to sue a family member, but in my opinion she stole the money and committed insurance fraud. I know that my mother intended this money for my three children's future educations, I even have family members to attest to this. However my stepfather says that it would be too expensive to take a chance that we might win the case. Would he have to file the suit or could I do it alone? Also my attorney, although he doesn't handle these type of cases says that we would not have to prove she committed a crime. That in cases such as this my aunt(who received the money) would have to prove she did nothing fraudulent and that my mother signed the papers without duress which would be hard to prove given her medical condition. Although my other aunt (her younger sister) I'm sure would say she was a witness to the signing , even though it is not true. :? do you think that there is even a case here to pursue?its not so much a matter of the money ( close to 70k) but the principal that she did this.