Life insurance - policy not nominated; any chance of a goodwill payment?

Arthur_Babbage

Person A had not nominated his wife (and next of kin) on his life-insurance policy at the time of death. The balance from which therefore went into a trust for his blood descendants. Do insurers (Aviva in this case) ever pay out a 'goodwill payment' to next of kin (with the remaining %age going into the trust), if we think that the lack of nomination was an honest mistake?

kingstreet

You don't nominate beneficiaries like you do for death in service cover.

You write the policy in trust for named or classes of beneficiary and if this doesn't happen, the proceeds pass into the estate of the deceased on death.

Weighty1

No!

If the plan was written into trust then the proceeds will be paid into trust. If the plan wasn't written into trust then the proceeds pay into the estate and are either distributed according to the will or via the process of intestacy.

What type of trust was used? The most commonly used trusts are either flexible or discretionary trust and ordinarily the spouse would be listed within the classes of automatically beneficiaries that the trustees can consider. In fact generally, most people arrange their trusts so that their spouse IS a trustee.

Arthur_Babbage

Yep, Person A appointed his wife (next of kin) as the sole trustee, but not as a beneficiary of the residual estate (as this goes to blood descendants from the date of death to 125 years after death).