What is the name of your state? Texas
Background: Due to long illness, poor money management, and vicious ex-wives, my once successful dentist father died penniless and with enormous debt. He had no house and had sold his practice for almost nothing. He had cashed in all the annuities he remembered having to pay bills and had stopped paying the premiums on insurance policies with the exception of one: a health insurance policy that had a small life insurance benefit attached. Although he did remove his ex-wife from health coverage at the time of their divorce, he neglected to remove her as primary beneficiary. I'm sure he forgot that there was a life benefit attached because he told me before he died that he had no life insurance. I am listed as secondary beneficiary.
This ex-wife had already received 57% of his retirement at the time of their divorce, she was primary beneficiary on an annuity that he forgot he had (because he had not cashed it in), and she will receive his Social Security survivor benefits (which for a dentist will be quite generous). She has also remarried (another dentist), and should be well set for the rest of her life. I, a single mother, took care of my dad for the last year of his life and have incurred many expenses associated with his illness and death. I am not probating his will, which names me and my son as sole heirs, because that would cost me even more money and there is nothing to get...no house, no business, no propery or assets, absolutely nothing.
Question: If I contest the ex-wife as beneficiary of the small life insurance policy, to whom would the insurance company pay the benefit when there is no estate? If they somehow are able to pay the benefit to his "estate" what would happen to the money if the will was never probated? How likely would it be for the insurance company to pay the secondary beneficiary, me?
Background: Due to long illness, poor money management, and vicious ex-wives, my once successful dentist father died penniless and with enormous debt. He had no house and had sold his practice for almost nothing. He had cashed in all the annuities he remembered having to pay bills and had stopped paying the premiums on insurance policies with the exception of one: a health insurance policy that had a small life insurance benefit attached. Although he did remove his ex-wife from health coverage at the time of their divorce, he neglected to remove her as primary beneficiary. I'm sure he forgot that there was a life benefit attached because he told me before he died that he had no life insurance. I am listed as secondary beneficiary.
This ex-wife had already received 57% of his retirement at the time of their divorce, she was primary beneficiary on an annuity that he forgot he had (because he had not cashed it in), and she will receive his Social Security survivor benefits (which for a dentist will be quite generous). She has also remarried (another dentist), and should be well set for the rest of her life. I, a single mother, took care of my dad for the last year of his life and have incurred many expenses associated with his illness and death. I am not probating his will, which names me and my son as sole heirs, because that would cost me even more money and there is nothing to get...no house, no business, no propery or assets, absolutely nothing.
Question: If I contest the ex-wife as beneficiary of the small life insurance policy, to whom would the insurance company pay the benefit when there is no estate? If they somehow are able to pay the benefit to his "estate" what would happen to the money if the will was never probated? How likely would it be for the insurance company to pay the secondary beneficiary, me?