Husbands old Pru policy (died)

cerephin

I have received a letter from the Prudential about a policy my late husband had before he was married to me. He had been married before and I do not have any details about this marriage apart from his former wife’s first name and they had a son. The Pru is asking for details I just do not have. My husband did not keep in contact with his son, so I have no way of knowing where he is( or his mother)  Not sure what to do now, I have given them all the details about our marriage and previous addresses but can not help further. They keep sending letters asking for more details “ to ensure they have the right person” my husband died 6 years ago, I had no idea about this policy.
what, if anything, should I do?
Many thanks for any advice offered

Sandtree

Do you know what type of policy it is?

You could phone them and speak to them over the phone to clarify the details you have and thats all that you have. Depending what type of policy it was there may be a benefit payable to the a named person, spouse at retirement or spouse at date of death etc

dunstonh

You can only give details that you know.  No more, no less.   Pru have a duty to ensure the right person gets the money.    
Some policies are explicit on who gets the benefit (such as those in trust). Others go different policy owners or back into the estate and distributed as per Will or intestacy rules.   Or the insurer is a trustee and they need to make the decision (not common nowadays but a pension term assurance would be like that).

cerephin

Thank you. The policy seems to be a very old one that belonged to a firm that was taken over by the Prudential that has now started up again. Only having the policy number it seems to be some sort of policy that can go up and down in value, so I am guessing sum sort of shares thing? Getting to speak to someone is about impossible, with the COVID crisis they have a lot on there hands at the moment. They are asking if my husband was married in 1983, as we meet in 1990 I really have no information for them as it was before my time. 

CapricornLass

Was it a life policy?  Do you have your husband's birth certificate?  Wouldn't that prove whether they have the right person or not?

Old_Lifer

A unit-linked endowment which has matured and they have lost contact with the policyholder  and are trying to trace the policyholder so that payment can be made ?

Sandtree

Old_Lifer said:

A unit-linked endowment which has matured and they have lost contact with the policyholder  and are trying to trace the policyholder so that payment can be made ?

If the policyholder is deceased who'd be the beneficiary? Wouldnt it just have formed part of the estate? Know next to nothing on endowments

dunstonh

Sandtree said:

Old_Lifer said:

A unit-linked endowment which has matured and they have lost contact with the policyholder  and are trying to trace the policyholder so that payment can be made ?

If the policyholder is deceased who'd be the beneficiary? Wouldnt it just have formed part of the estate? Know next to nothing on endowments

Endowments are identical to term assurance except with an investment element.  So, the usual death payment process applies (paid to surviving policy owner if joint, or to the beneficiary if in trust or the estate if life assured was owner etc).

Another possibility is that it is a pension term assurance and/or pension.   Those have an expression of wish but it was left to the trustees to decide who to pay it to.   On death, pension trustees do often ask about family members etc to ensure they have the full detail when deciding who to pay it to and if the expression of wish still remains up-to-date (assuming there is one at all)

Old_Lifer

We don't have enough detail to give a real opinion.   There is no mention of any documentation being found  just a policy number but the policy number would appear on letters issued recently.   As there was no knowledge of the policy,  presumably there are no bank statement entries and premiums ceased years ago.   Death took place 6 years ago.

A possible scenario.      It could be an old policy from long ago where the policyholder stopped paying premiums and the policy was converted to paid-up.    As no documentation has been found,  it may be that this was eventually  thrown out by the policyholder  thinking the policy no longer had a value as he had stopped paying premiums years ago.  The Life Office appears to have lost  contact with the policyholder  and the team trying to re-unite policyholders with their  policy proceeds may have initially been unaware of the death.

If not subject to a trust,  the policy proceeds would form part of the Estate.   If this is an old paid-up policy the amount payable may not be very large,  especially if premiums ceased early in the policy term.

As I said above,  we have little information here and the above comments are just speculation on my part.

rs65

cerephin said:

He had been married before and I do not have any details about this marriage apart from his former wife’s first name and they had a son. The Pru is asking for details I just do not have. My husband did not keep in contact with his son, so I have no way of knowing where he is( or his mother)  

Can you search National Archives or the like for marriage and divorce records?

cerephin

Thank you for all your comments, I believe I will draw a line under this old policy as I do not think it will be worth the amount of work trying to get all the info the Prudential says it needs.  As they have seen the death certificate and know my husband’s full name and date of birth I can’t see how it could be anyone else?
still as Old Lifer says it will be for a paltry amount as it’s an old, unknown policy