The Perfect Fit: An Ironclad Vault and Life Insurance

Life insurance is an important part of family protection that ensures that your family is taken care of in case anything happens to you.   Unfortunately, many life insurance policies don't actually get paid to the beneficiaries. Read on to find out why and learn what you can do about it.

Why Insurance Might Not Get Paid

Life insurance benefits are not automatic. Beneficiaries have to claim their benefits and to do that, they need to know that a policy exists and what company the policy is with.  In reality, it can even be more difficult that than.  When my father passed away in 2005, I knew he had a number of insurance policies, but I didn't know how many or who they were with.  After 5 years of research, I was able to find 2 of those policies, and the company that had sold him the policy had been bought and merged with other companies.  Needless to say, the policy number had changed every time the owning company changed.  If a beneficiary doesn't know that a policy exists and doesn't know who currently holds the policy, it will never get paid, because no one ever claims it.

Knowledge is Power!

The way to make sure that the benefits of all of your life insurance policies are actually received is to make sure that your beneficiaries know what insurance policies you have, what company they are with, what the policy numbers are, and who to contact when the time comes for a claim.  Having the information they need when they need it is really the key.  That sounds simple, and in some cases, it is. 

Time is not your friend.

Time has a way of blurring memories and slowly eroding physical items.  My father thought he would print everything out and store it for us to find when the time was right.  He had a folder called "At the time of..."  That was a good plan back then, but 25 years later, the light printing of the 1980 Apple dot-matrix printer was all but illegible.  He lived in Florida and the paper had suffered 25 years of humidity and heat, and more than one hurricane. (He lived in Florida.)

Let Technology work for you!

Technology used correctly makes our lives easier, more stable, and more consistent.  Leaving information to loved ones is no exception.  Information that is securely locked in digital vaults and is rigorously backed up in multiple locations, coupled with a mechanism of delivering that information to the right people at the right time is the way to ensure that the assets that you paid for are actually delivered to your loved ones "at the time of..."  But just like every plan, all companies offering digital vaults are not created equally.  Be sure to research the company that you store your information with to ensure that it is safe, backed up, and will be delivered when the time is right.