Life Insurance
Overview
Life insurance provides a death benefit for an individual's beneficiaries. It allows survivors to pay off debts and other expenses; it can also provide a source of income to replace that lost by the death of the insured.
There are two primary types of life insurance: term, which provides insurance for a specified period of time at a lower cost; and permanent, which provides a certain amount of coverage at variable rates.
There are other variations, including universal life, which builds cash value and is widely marketed by life insurance companies.
Life Claim Settlement Practices
One of the more important things a person can do during their lifetime is to purchase a life insurance policy to cover final death expenses and possibly even leave a monetary benefit to their heirs. However, there are times when a policy purchased years earlier goes unnoticed and unclaimed following the policyholder’s death.
There are two ways the identified property and/or funds are being returned to Florida consumers:
- Directly from the life insurance company, through improved internal search processes imposed as part of the regulatory settlement agreements.
- Florida's Department of Financial Services' Bureau of Unclaimed Property, the insurance company remits property to the state when they are unsuccessful at locating a beneficiary. Families may then search the website for a loved one's name to see if there is unclaimed property available to collect. The website is available here.