Question
What is the name of your state?
Alabama
My Father-in-Law passed away this week. All of his life insurance has my husband as the beneficiary. She and a friend have taken the documents and will not provide them to us to look over and give to the funeral home. We have met with the Funeral Director three times and she has still not produced the documents. I am sure she thinks somehow she can change them, which of course she cannot, so she is waiting until Monday to see an attorney. In the mean time, my father-in-law is rotting in a funeral home and we can't even plan his funeral. There maybe just barely enough to cover the burial but she is a paranoid schizophrenic and not stable. This is the reason my father-in-law placed my husband in charge. What our legal rights in making them produce the policies and what can we do to find out who the policies are with and how much they are worth without knowing or having them in hand? This is a very time sensitive issue so please respond as quickly as possible.
Answer
Do you know the name of the company that issued the policy?
Answer
What is the name of your state?
Alabama
My Father-in-Law passed away this week. All of his life insurance has my husband as the beneficiary. She and a friend have taken the documents and will not provide them to us to look over and give to the funeral home. We have met with the Funeral Director three times and she has still not produced the documents. I am sure she thinks somehow she can change them, which of course she cannot, so she is waiting until Monday to see an attorney. In the mean time, my father-in-law is rotting in a funeral home and we can't even plan his funeral. There maybe just barely enough to cover the burial but she is a paranoid schizophrenic and not stable. This is the reason my father-in-law placed my husband in charge. What our legal rights in making them produce the policies and what can we do to find out who the policies are with and how much they are worth without knowing or having them in hand? This is a very time sensitive issue so please respond as quickly as possible.
My response:
Unless your FIL is laid out on a slab, out in the open (which I doubt), he's not "rotting" - - which is, I guess, your word for "decomposing". Anyway, the funeral home has him in one of their slide-drawer freezers; so, he's not "rotting".
Does your husband know any of the names of the insurance company(s)?
IAAL
Answer
No, if we knew any of this information, we could contact the insurance companies but she is holding all of it hostage for some unknown reason. Some random guy has jumped in the middle of this and his creating total hell for my husband and his siblings. It was a very unexpected death and we have always been very good to her. We just want to give him the funeral he wanted and move on. We don't want any money or the house she lives in - we just want to bury the poor man. He doesn't have a written will either.
Answer
Then bury him. You don't need the insurance documents to do that. All you need is a checkbook.
Deal with the insurance later.
If he died in a small town, then chances are he would have used an agent close by. Also, if he had homeowner's insurance or auto insurance, check with those companies also.
Answer
I am very intelligent and I am fully aware that he is not actually rotting. In fact, I am insulted that you reply in such a way. It must be obvious that this is a stressful situation so please be sensitive and keep your unnecessary remarks for your porn chat rooms.
Answer
My response:
Then, how do you expect us to help you? There's nothing you can do. Those papers belong to her. As a matter of fact, you don't even know for a fact that your husband is the beneficiary.
How could your FIL have left your husband "in charge" when the man never made out a Will, and he didn't give your husband the insurance papers?
Doesn't sound like "in charge" to me!
Oral statements don't count. So, I don't want to read from you, "Well, my Father-in-law SAID he was in charge."
IAAL
Answer
I am very intelligent and I am fully aware that he is not actually rotting. In fact, I am insulted that you reply in such a way. It must be obvious that this is a stressful situation so please be sensitive and keep your unnecessary remarks for your porn chat rooms.
My response:
You're "insulted" when I use YOUR "insensitive" word? That was the word YOU USED to describe his condition!!
You're the one that said, "my father-in-law is rotting".
So, don't get pissy with me, lady!
IAAL
Answer
My husband completed the life insurance documents and placed them in the file cabinet at my FIL's home. We never expected his wife to make this difficult - which shame on us.
Answer
My husband completed the life insurance documents and placed them in the file cabinet at my FIL's home. We never expected his wife to make this difficult - which shame on us.
My response:
That, and a dime, won't buy you a cup of coffee. Take Belize's advice - - "whip out your checkbook and bury the man."
In the meantime, take a chill pill.
IAAL