my dad's life insurance?
my father passed away in 1991(he was 48), he had multiple life insurance policies. some were worth around ,000 and others around ,000. i believe he took them out in 1984. and i also believe they are term life insurance policies. for instance one says
"Face Amt. :00 Terminal Cash Value :59.94
Terminal Date: December 1, 2007"
now i was looking through the info my mom has about how much she was paid for these policies and this particular one she was only paid .98. now call me crazy but i believe she was supposed to receive 00. wasn’t she? i ask now b/c we just found all these policies and the fact that she wasn’t paid any of them in full bothers me. like the one for around ,000 she only received 9.32. seems like bs to me. i need some real help with this one. oh and the insurance company is New England Mutual Life Insurance in boston, ma, if that makes a difference. we lived in ny.
thanks
lyla
July 25th, 2010 at 5:38 PM
Why didn’t you call the insurance company and ask them the question? If the policy was a term life and your Dad passed away before the term ended, there is no cash value at all in that policy. If they are term life, no matter what he paid in, if he died before the term ended, usually 10 or 20 years. You should call the insurance companies concerned. Since that was almost 20 years ago when he died, it might be too late to put a claim in for payment but I really don’t know.
July 25th, 2010 at 5:38 PM
Lyla, the insurance company should be paying her whatever the death benefit is, however, if the "terminal cash value" was cashed in by your dad, then that money has already been withdrawn.
If they’re whole life policies, where he’d have to pay in for 15 years, for example, but he borrowed against the cash value, that cash value, PLUS INTEREST, gets subtracted from the death benefit.
Mom should have received the info, from each policy, about WHY that amount was due. Now you’re looking at 20 years later . . mom probably forgets. But most likely, he withdrew the additional monies prior to his death.