Beneficiary disputes
Simultaneous and Close-in-Time Deaths
When the insured and the beneficiary die in the same accident or close together, who gets the money can turn on who survived whom, sometimes by minutes or hours. State law supplies default rules, and the policy itself may set its own.
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Why order of death matters
A beneficiary designation pays the beneficiary only if he or she survives the insured. If the beneficiary died first, the money usually goes to a contingent beneficiary, or to whoever the policy names as a default, often the insured’s estate. If the beneficiary survived, even briefly, the money may go to the beneficiary’s estate and then to the beneficiary’s heirs, who may be different people entirely.
Default rules: simultaneous death acts
Many states have simultaneous death statutes, often based on uniform acts. Minnesota’s statute shows the typical structure:
- For life or accident insurance, where the insured and the beneficiary have died “and there is no sufficient evidence that they have died otherwise than simultaneously,” the proceeds are distributed “as if the insured had survived the beneficiary.”1
- For joint tenants with no sufficient evidence of the order of death, the property is split one-half as if each had survived.1
- For certain other transfers, including gifts under a will and some trusts and transfer-on-death deeds, the statute requires survival by 120 hours, so a beneficiary who dies within five days is treated as not having survived.1
States have adopted different versions of these uniform rules, and the 120-hour requirement does not apply to every kind of asset in every state. Check the current statute for the state whose law governs.
The policy may control
Simultaneous death statutes generally apply only where the governing instrument does not provide otherwise. The Illinois statute discussed in Janus applied where there was “no other provision in the will, trust agreement, deed, contract of insurance or other governing instrument” for a different distribution.2 Some policies require the beneficiary to survive the insured by a set period. Read the policy’s beneficiary and settlement provisions first.
Proving who died first
If the claim depends on survival, the person making that claim generally has to prove it. In Janus, the Illinois Appellate Court stated that survivorship “is a fact which must be proved by a preponderance of the evidence by the party whose claim depends on survivorship.”2 Medical records, paramedic and hospital reports, and expert testimony on the medical definition of death can all be central.
How courts have ruled
- Facts
- Stanley and Theresa Janus, recently married, took cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules on September 29, 1982. Stanley was pronounced dead that evening. Theresa was placed on life support and was pronounced dead on October 1 after a diagnosis of brain death. Stanley's $100,000 life insurance policy named Theresa as primary beneficiary and his mother as contingent beneficiary. The insurer paid Theresa's estate, and Stanley's mother sued, arguing there was no sufficient evidence that Theresa survived him.
- Holding
- The trial court found sufficient evidence that Theresa survived Stanley, so the simultaneous death act did not apply, and the appellate court affirmed.
- Why it matters
- Survival by a short time can decide who receives the money. Detailed medical evidence about when each person died, in both a heart-and-lung and a brain-death sense, decided this case.
Janus v. Tarasewicz, 135 Ill. App. 3d 936, 482 N.E.2d 418 (1985).