How to Organize Life Insurance documents

Life insurance policies are important for protecting loved ones after you die who rely on your income for living expenses.

What could be just as important as taking out a policy is keeping your life insurance documents in order and organized so your loved ones will know where to locate the files when the time comes.

According to an Insurance Information Institute article, “How should I organize and store my life insurance records,” keeping these documents in order is one of the most important things you can do.

There could be nothing worse than taking out a life insurance and paying the premiums for years, and then your loved ones not being able to collect on it. But, there are a variety of ways to avoid a situation like this from happening to you, if you keep things organized and in safe places.

“The last thing you want to happen after you die is for your beneficiaries to be unable to locate and submit a claim on your life insurance. To prevent this, you should have copies of your life insurance records in at least two places. This is to make it less likely that you’ll lose them (to fire, flood, accidental discarding, etc.) and more likely that, after your death, your beneficiaries will find them.”

The author also suggests that you record pertinent information about each individual policy you have taken out.

Some of the suggestions include; writing down the full name and address of the insurance company, the type of policy and policy number, the information of the broker who sold you the policy, the date the policy was issued and the death benefit.

Taking the time to record this important information could save your beneficiaries a lot of time and trouble in the future. It is better to have more information on hand then not enough.

Employers, credit card companies and other institutions also offer supplemental life insurance as well, and these different types of life insurance products should all be accounted for accordingly as well.

“Sometimes financial programs that are mainly designed for income or other purposes have death benefits as additional features. This might include pensions, annuities, workers compensation programs, disability insurance, travel accident insurance, etc.”

After you have accounted for and recorded all of the pertinent information for your policies, you now have to store them properly.

“Keep one set of these records in your home, in a place where others who need this information are likely to find it (and after you put the information there, tell the people who’ll need it where it is). This might be with your other financial records (such as income tax, checking account, investment records), with your other legal papers (such as a copy of your will, living will, health care proxy, etc.), or anywhere your survivors are likely to look for them.”

“Keep another set of these records “off site”—that is, outside of your home, perhaps in a safe deposit box, or with a professional or a relative who can be counted on to produce them when they’re needed.”

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