Get Your Benefits with a Life Insurance Lawyer Serving WV

We can help you by  investigating the reason for the delay. If the delay is unreasonable, meaning, the life insurance company had no valid reason for waiting to pay your claim, you may be entitled to interest on the death benefit. Call us to discuss your case.

You should fight that denial. Why? Because life insurance companies frequently deny valid claims for death benefits. 

When you receive the denial letter you should also receive documents explaining how to contest the denial with the life insurance company. Call us – we can help you fight back.

It is possible to get paid on a lapsed life insurance policy. 

You must contest the denial, investigate, and determine what caused the lapse in coverage. If the lapse was not the fault of the policyholder, it is possible to still get a payout. For example, if an employer failed to give the policyholder conversion papers or improperly administered the policy, or the life insurance company failed to send the policyholder any of the lapse notices that are required under the law, the life insurance company will pay the beneficiary’s claim.

Call our WV life insurance lawyers if your life insurance claim was denied due to lapse. We will investigate and get you paid if at all possible.

Only the policyholder. A policyholder can change their beneficiary designation any time they choose, to whomever they wish. 

If you suspect a beneficiary change was made fraudulently or under duress, you can contest it. Fraud cases can be very difficult to prove. Contact an experienced life insurance beneficiary attorney for help litigating this.

If the primary beneficiary died before the policyholder, the life insurance company will pay the death benefit to the secondary beneficiary or the contingent beneficiary. If the policyholder did not designate secondary or contingent beneficiaries, the death benefit can pay out to the policyholder’s estate.

Unfortunately, when the death benefits pay to the estate they are subject to the claims of the policyholder’s creditors. To avoid this and ensure that beneficiaries receive the full amount of the death benefit, policyholders should designate secondary beneficiaries and keep their beneficiary designations up to date.

A minor cannot directly receive death benefits. A court will have to appoint a conservator to administer the funds on behalf of the minor beneficiary. Unfortunately, there is little that anyone can do to prevent a conservator from using the funds for their own benefit.

If a policyholder wants a minor to receive the death benefit, they should set up a trust with the minor as beneficiary of the trust, and name the trust as beneficiary of the life insurance policy. This way, they can select who will act as trustee. Consult with an estate planning attorney if you wish to set up a trust for a minor life insurance beneficiary.

No! A beneficiary designation change after the date of the policyholder’s death is fraudulent. Contact an experienced life insurance beneficiary attorney immediately.

If you are a spouse or ex-spouse of the policyholder, and you were supposed to be the named beneficiary for any reason but someone else was named, you can and should contest it. For example, some policyholders are under court order to designate their ex-spouse as beneficiary to insure support payments. 

Contact us if you were supposed to be a beneficiary on a life insurance policy but someone else was named instead – we can help you.

If you suspect someone had a life insurance policy, you will have to investigate on your own because there is no nationwide database of all policyholders. 

Consider searching the contents of a safe-deposit box or desk drawers for evidence of a policy. You can also look through the recent mail for premium notices, and inspect bank account statements for evidence of premium payments.