Life Insurance Beneficiary

A letter to whom? The insurance company? No, it needs to go through the proper procedure, a change of beneficiary form. You say she holds the policy. As long as she is the owner of the policy, it's her right to change it to you or whomever she chooses. Not to open a can of worms, but is she's fearful of how he's react, there's more of a problem that the posters here can help with. Another consideration - she can change the owner to you, and make you the beneficiary as well. As least that way, you will get the premium notice, and any paperwork that may remind the husband the policy even exists.

You may also want to check the beneficiaries on her other accounts, IRA, Brokerage, etc. Since IRAs cannot be held jointly, a change of beneficiary there is pretty simple. Other accounts held joint, less so. JOE

Have your Mother contact the company (or her agent), and request a "Change of Owner" form, as well as a change of "Beneficiary Form".

Then have her change the Ownership of the contact to YOU. AFTER the ownership is changed, YOU as the Owner, can change the beneficiary to yourself.

All future payment requests will then be addressed to YOU.

Cal Lester CLU

Cal - I am not questioning the advice, I am just curious why the OP's Mom should not just fill out both forms, why the two-step?

JOE

I was trying to avoid the possibility that the Carrier might NOT accept a Beneficiary Change form a person who was no longer the Owner........... Maybe being over protective....... Cal Lester CLU

Don't many states require the consent of the beneficiary spouse to change the beneficiary to a non-spouse? This doesn't sound feasible for the OP's parent.

-Will

It depends on the state. If the couple lives in a community property state, I'm pretty sure that's the case. Otherwise, I don't think so.

For a 401k, it's probably different - at least where I am, when I did my rollover, I wasn't married and I needed nothing for the 401k but my own signature attesting to that fact - but for my MPP, I had to get a *notarized* signature attesting to it! (were I married at that time, I'd have needed a notarized signature from my spouse).

I think that only applies to community property states doesn't it?

I know from experience that GA & AL don't require anything other than the account owners signature.

I don't think you are being overprotective, but even if you are, sometimes overprotective is best.

I recently had a client that wanted to do exactly what Joe recommended (change owner and bene). I had the original owner sign the change of beneficiary form and then the change of ownership form, because we wanted both "orders" to come from the original owner/insured (in case it went to court). I dumbly faxed both the forms to the insurance company at the same time. Surprise, surprise, the insurance company processed the ownership change first (by coincidence, not policy) and then claimed that the proper (new) owner had not signed the beneficiary change form. Of course, if they had processed the forms in reverse order there would have been no problem. I deservedly felt like a real idiot going back to get a new form signed by the new owner.