How to claim the death benefit or death proceeds?

What is death benefit?

Death benefit is also called proceeds; this is the amount payable to the beneficiary by the life insurance company upon the insured’s death.

If someone buys a life insurance he will be insured against death, should he die the life insurance company will compensate the beneficiary a lump sum of money called death benefit. If he buys a disability insurance there will be no death benefit if he dies of old age or illness, because this policy only provides coverage for his death or disability caused by accident only.

A person purchases a life insurance policy is called the policyholder or insured; the person who in future will receive the compensation upon the death of the insured is called the beneficiary. It is also possible if you want to split the death benefit to two or more persons, then the policy will include their name, then there will be a few beneficiaries endorsed in the policy. In the event of your death the beneficiary will be the one who is legally and eligibly to receive the death benefit from the life insurance company.

What are the minimum requirement and proof?

If the insured died, the beneficiary needs to make a report to the police and obtain a death certificate, because this is the legal proof to show to the insurance company that the insured has passed away. If the insured died in the hospital then you can ask the doctor or any authorized person to issue a document to obtain the death certificate. This usually takes a week for most of the countries, this is the mandatory way to proof that someone has really passed away and we want to claim his properties or asset or his life insurance death benefit or death proceeds. The insurance company will give the beneficiary a claim form to fill, this will normally take a couple of weeks depend on the efficiency and the evidence provided by the claimant. When the confirmation is done the beneficiary can collect the proceeds, it is normally in one lump sum or annuity, depends on what type of policy, but in most cases, full amount will be paid.

Disability insurance

If a policyholder owns a disability insurance or personal accident insurance, he can claim total disabled compensation if he survives an accident, if he dies, the beneficiary can claim the accidental death benefit from the insurance company.

If the insurance company has any suspicion upon the insured’s death or any written statement was falsely made by the insured during the time he purchased the policy, the insurance company may investigate the circumstances of his death before deciding whether to release the death benefit. If the buyer had an illness or symptom but did not disclose or confess during the time he fill in the application form, the insurance company reserves the right to reject the claim or may delay it until further investigation carried out.  

Therefore when buying a policy the buyer needs to tell the truth when filling in the form, any claim rejection may happen in future if the insurance company detected any suspicion, after all, honesty is the best policy.

After someone died that is not the end of the story, the family needs to pay for the deceased’s funeral expenses and his debt. To prevent them running into bad debt, you can leave behind them death proceeds or death benefit, so buy a life insurance to cover up these expenses, find out accidental death or accidental insurance or how to claim the death proceeds, please visit us at http://www.indianapolislifeinsurance.net/index.html