Life Ins beneficiary - child vs. spouse question

[Zellie]

My mother just recently died in California. At the time of her death, she was still married to my father, who disappeared from our lives in July 1984. That was the last we saw or spoke to him.

I am named as the beneficiary on her life insurance policy, however, CA is a community property state. There is a section on the beneficiary designation form which asks for the spouse to sign if a different beneficiary is named. She simply marked N/A on the line and submitted the form.

What can I expect when I begin to try and collect on this life insurance policy? Will my father have to be found? Do the funds have to go to him? If so, what is my recourse?

In reading elsewhere, there was a case -- Marriage of Baragry (1977) 73 Cal.App.Bd 444 where the court decreed: date of separation is when there has been a complete and final breakdown in marital relationship.

I would think after 17 years of separation, the marriage would be considered 'broken down.'

 

[ALawyer]

This is the type of matter in which it may pay to act dumb and just file the claim with the insurance company and see what happens and say your father is dead if asked, which you likely will not be.

You are the named beneficiary, and that may be enough and no one may ask anything else.

If the insurance company believes she is still married and questions are raised you may want or have to go to court to have him declared legally dead which should be easy after so many years, assuming there has been proper investigation and no one (his family, friends, Social Security, etc.) has heard hide nor hare of him all these intervening years. With the abandonment he would NOT have any right to proceeds anyway.