Life Assurance Claim when Proposer Dead

WRabbit

My grandfather passed away at the start of this year and I'm dealing with his estate. All of this is in Scotland.

We found a couple of Prudential policies in his papers, one of which turns out to have been proposed by his aunt. His aunt died in 1967.

Now the Pru want to know who the next of kin or executors are for her. She was never married, and had no children. All her siblings are long dead.

I wasn't even born until after she died, and from speaking to my grandmother I suspect she died leaving very little (if anything) and the estate was likely to have been settled 'informally'. The policy details were passed to my grandfather on her death, but wasn't assigned and he doesn't appear to have been nominated as the recipient.

I intend to write to Prudential again stating that my grandfather was (until his death) one of her closest living relatives so that they can give me details of the policy. I don't know how much it's worth, but suspect approx £1500 (Industrial Branch) going by the value of the one that my grandfather proposed.

From when another aunt died in the 80s it looks like there are 3 branches of the family entitled to a share. Mine and the children of 2 other siblings of the Aunt. In the 80s this was 6 people in total. I know at least 2 (3 including my grandfather) of those people are now also dead. I have no contact details for the other 3. Bearing in mind that although I'm talking about children here, these are people of my grandfather's generation and will all be in their 70s and 80s.

eg
A (Proposer - dead)
B (dead) - Child B1 (dead)
C (dead) - Child C1 (dead), Child C2 (unknown), Child C3 (unknown)
D (dead) - Child D1 (life assured, dead), Child D2 (unknown)

So basically what do I do here? Does anyone have any experience of how things work in this situation, and how best to sort this. I'm loathe for the money to sit with the Prudential, but it's a bit of a Gordion knot.

clear_blu

Write to the Prudential giving as much information as you can. I assume that as you are handling your grandfathers estate that you are defraying funeral expenses. Point that out. I have seen this situation a number of times and it is usually resolved by paying the cash to the person that the Prudential deem the correct person to receive it. That person signs an indemnity that if another relative who has a more valid claim comes forward at a future date, then the person signing agrees to defer the cost of settling that claim.Don't know if Scottish law is different but in England they can ask for letters of administration.

WRabbit

Thanks for that - I'll write the letter and see what happens. They can only say no.

It's not until I've had to deal with all this that I've realised how helpful/unhelpful different organisations can be. They all have different views on what info they need eg one company gave me info on £15000 worth of info with just a letter from me and a copy of the death cert, whilst another want certified copies of the will and other paperwork for £700!

WRabbit

Update on this in case anyone finds themselves in a similar situation.

Wrote to The Prudential giving all the details regarding the proposer - and that we believed the policy had been passed to my grandfather on her death.

They accepted this and told us the amount of the policy and that they would await confirmation for paying out.

Then once we had the confirmation we sent it to them - and they said that they wouldn't pay out as the proposer was *name* - could they have her details.

We sent her details again - a copy of the previous letter.

They wrote back saying that the details we'd provided didn't match their records.

We phoned - they wouldn't give us any information that they had to help us ID the person they thought it was due to the DPA. Not even year of birth. At no point were we able to speak directly to someone who had visibility of the file and the ability to apply some common sense to the application of the DPA.

After several phone calls, a full research of family history and family tree we were completely convinced we had the right person (ie the same person we'd supplied them with details of twice). With no information from them as to why they'd agreed to pay out, then refused to pay out, they changed their minds again and agreed to release the funds. We didn't argue - and got a cheque a couple of days later!

We were probably fortunate that we've got a very unusual surname so doing the necessary family research was very easy. In all it cost me some time, stress and about £25 looking through scotlandspeople.gov.uk. The policy was only for just over £1000 but it was worth spending that little time.

I'm none the wiser as to what was actually going on internally within the Prudential - but don't necessarily take an initial 'no'. Gather as much information as you can about everyone concerned and hope for the best!