Dear Liz: What advice can you provide to people when they stumble on old life insurance policies that may never have been cashed in?
Answer: My siblings and I have personal experience with this after coming across two policies in our late father’s papers. We learned one policy had indeed been cashed in, but the second — purchased in the 1930s, with a face value of $5,000 — was still in effect.
You typically can use a search engine to determine if the insurer is still in business or if it has changed its name or merged with another company. (Not surprisingly, the insurer that issued the 1930s policy had been involved in several mergers in the intervening decades, but it took just seconds for us to find the current incarnation.) If you’re having trouble tracking down the company, contact the insurance regulator in the state where the insurer was originally located.
Once you have the current insurer name and contact information, you can call and ask if the policy is still in force. If the policy has value, the insurer can instruct you how to make a claim.