Received a distribution that was 2.5% of $1M death benefit from my father’s policy after he passed

[airborne23]

$25k, in other words. Is this unusual? He had a GVUL policy with MetLife. I requested a copy of the policy but there were no details about how benefits were distributed among beneficiaries. I also requested annual communication summaries of premium payments, disbursements, earnings, and death benefits amounts related to the policy but haven’t received anything yet.

My thought is he must have left 2.5% to me, 2.5% to my brother, and 95% to my stepmother, but I can’t verify that at the moment. It just seems uncharacteristic of him to divide the pie that way. Is this possible? I think I’m in denial. Also feeling like damn, maybe he didn’t love me that much.

 

[honeybee81]

@airborne23 With the caveat that this may not be a universal truth:

I'm a claims examiner & we do not provide information about other beneficiaries or how the benefit was distributed, it's a privacy violation.

I get a claim about once a month where I look at the designation & get that sinking feeling that someone is going to be upset because of something like this. It just is what it is, they have to follow the designation as written. You can keep asking for documents but none of it is going to answer the question you're trying to ask.

They can't tell you why your father did that. I'm sorry.

 

[mahyrah]

@airborne23 I don't spend much time in the guaranteed space, but I can tell you I've seen a number of inforce illustrations where GVUL's reduce face amount significantly in the older ages to keep costs down. If I recall correctly, it's usually every 5 years starting around 65 or 70. My point being that it may have started at $1,000,000 but depending on age it could have reduced to $500k or even less.

I know it's not the most helpful info but you may find out it's 5%/5%/90% or 10%/10%/80% rather than 2.5%/2.5%/95%.

 

[onyinyeuche]

@airborne23 Most carriers don’t allow you to leave a fraction of a percent to beneficiaries. FYI

Since you aren’t the owner, MetLife isn’t going to tell you anything about the policy. Your best bet would be to find out who the agent was and see if they would give you more info.

 

[fendertele52]

@airborne23 This was a group policy (the G in GVUL). There is no agent.