When a person buys a life insurance policy, he or she is able to choose a beneficiary. That person will receive the death benefit after the insured person passes away. In some cases, people are changing their selection of beneficiary without letting their spouse know about it. This could lead to an unpleasant discovery, later on.
Most people will choose their spouse as the beneficiary of their life insurance policy. It is also very common to select one of their children as the beneficiary, instead. This makes a certain amount of sense.
A life insurance policy is designed to provide a person’s family with the money to pay for the person’s funeral, and for his or her medical bills, (that are not already covered by a health insurance policy). Frequently, a life insurance death benefit is enough to pay off the rest of a person’s mortgage, and to enable his or her family to continue to live the lifestyle that they were living before the insured person died.
A person who has a life insurance policy can choose to change whomever he or she has selected as their beneficiary at any time. There is no limit to how often a person can do this, and it doesn’t require the permission of anyone else in order for that change to be made. All a person has to do is fill out the proper form, (often called a “change of beneficiary form”), and send it to their insurance company.
Almost all marriages will have some difficult times to work through. This could be the couple’s first big fight, or it could be nothing more tragic than a temporary “bump in the road”. Sometimes, though, the situation seems so dire that a person truly believes that his or her marriage really is about to come to an end. This is when people call up their insurance agent, and ask for a change of beneficiary form to be mailed to them.
They no longer trust their spouse, so they would rather that one of their children become the beneficiary instead. This prevents the spouse from receiving the death benefit. It puts the child, (who might be an adult), in charge of where that money would go.
Often, instead of changing the beneficiary, the person changes his or her mind. Things seem brighter, or the fight is resolved. The person no longer feels the need to remove his spouse as the beneficiary, and so, the form is never returned to the insurance company. No changes can be made until the proper form is filled out and returned, and so, things remain exactly as they were. This is usually what happens.
Sometimes, though, a person will follow through with his or her intent, and will remove their spouse from being the beneficiary. If this happens, the insurance company is not allowed to contact the person’s spouse about the change. This is because the insured person has complete control over choice of beneficiary. One can only imagine the shock some people must feel when this change is discovered.
Image by Public Domain Photos on Flickr