While I was attending "QuickBooks Connect" recently in Las Vegas, I received a phone call having to do with a long-ago paid up life insurance policy that we didn’t even know our father had. Evidently, they stumbled onto his obituary online and did the right thing in trying to find his executors. We’re still following up on that claim.
But that got me thinking: given our parents’ lack of record-keeping, what if they had other policies? And what if they had balances in bank accounts that we knew nothing about?
And so I found some information that you can use to search for existing life insurance policies and bank accounts for the recently deceased. These services are all online and are free to use.
But be aware that time is of the essence, because if you wait too long to follow up on abandoned policies and accounts, depending on where you live and what you’re trying to find, it may be too late to do anything.
Lost life insurance policies
While it is possible to reach out to a life insurance company directly to inquire about a policy, you can’t be sure which insurers the deceased used. And they may have had group insurance through an employer. Therefore, it may be necessary to cast a wider net.
USA life insurance policies
The NAIC Life Insurance Policy Locator Service can help you find lost life insurance policies, and will require that you enter information from the death certificate. Instructions on how to use the site can be found HERE.
The Social Security Administration has a “Death Master” file, which keeps track of all its recipients who died. But bear in mind that only deaths reported to the SSA are included. Certain states do have online policy finders, and you also can reach out to the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators to get to a particular state’s database of unclaimed property.
Canadian life insurance policies
The Ombudservice for Life & Health Insurance can help you find lost life insurance policies as long as it has been between three months and two years since the individual passed away.
Dormant bank accounts
USA bank accounts
When a bank determines an account or safe deposit box has been abandoned, they transfer the contents to the state. This is called “escheatment,” and laws vary by state regarding how long to wait before a financial institution must turn over the property.
Usually, this time frame is between three and five years. And, if a bank has failed, federal law dictates that unclaimed deposit accounts must be transferred to the state after 18 months. If there are safe deposit boxes at a failed bank, state laws vary on the time frame to transfer the contents to the state.
The FDIC’s Unclaimed Funds website provides state-by-state links to help you find missing bank accounts and safe deposit boxes.
Canadian bank accounts
The Bank of Canada Unclaimed Properties website enables you to search for unclaimed bank balances. It acts as a custodian of the funds. After a period of time, the funds are transferred to the Receiver General for Canada. The time period depends on the amount: for funds under $1,000, the period is 30 years and for amounts over $1,000, the period is 100 years.
This is my last installment of the “Guess What? People Die” series. I hope you’ve found it helpful for your clients…and yourselves.
Esther
Esther Friedberg Karp is an internationally-renowned trainer, writer and speaker from Toronto, where she runs her QuickBooks consulting practice, EFK CompuBooks Inc. Consistently in Insightful Accountant's Top 100 ProAdvisors, she has been named to the Top 10 twice.
With the unique distinction of holding ProAdvisor certifications in the US, Canadian, UK, and International versions of QuickBooks, she has traveled the world with Intuit. She has spoken at conferences such as "QuickBooks Connect," "Scaling New Heights," and "Future Forward," and has written countless articles for Intuit Global. In addition, she is author of "Multicurrency in QuickBooks Desktop: The Most In-Depth QuickBooks Multicurrency Training Available." The book, which is available on Amazon, is the only one of its kind that teaches how QuickBooks treats foreign currency transactions—all the tricks and the tips, and how to deal with foreign business as an expert.
Esther has been named one of the “Top 50 Women in Accounting,” a “Top 10 Influencer” in the Canadian Bookkeeping World, and is a repeat nominee for the “RBC Canadian Women’s Entrepreneur Awards.” She counts among her clients many international companies, as well as accounting professionals seeking her out on behalf of their own clients for her expertise in multi-currency and various countries’ editions of QuickBooks Desktop and Online.
She can be reached at esther@e-compubooks.com or 416-410-0750.
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