Leaving kin out of life insurance claim

[helpfulmom]

What would happen if a person died and left a life insurance policy that no family members knew about until after the estate was settled through probate. When they discovered the life insurance policy, her children all send applications to the life insurance company to get the money -- except they leave one sibling out. Would the life insurance company pay the children who applied for it? Would they care about the other child? All the children are adults and the life insurance policy did not have a beneficiary.

 

[ALawyer]

Unless the proceeds were relatively tiny, and the insurnace company had the right to pay under a "facility of payment" clause, the life insurance company should say - "as there was no named beneficiary, we must pay the executor of the estate, unless ALL the heirs at law give us other directions in the form of an affidavit ".

 

[helpfulmom]

There was no beneficiary named on the insurance policy, which was under $10,000, and the estate has already completed probate. The person who was the estate's executor was so incompetent they got the information about this life insurance policy before probate began but they ignored it. This is the same person who took their parent's money and spent it.
What do you think?