The documents are there, but does the beneficiary receive the money? (Photo: ShutterStock)
Does a life insurance policy necessarily require payment to the beneficiary indicated on it?
On the face of it, the answer is positive, but Haifa Magistrate's Court judge Siglit Matza was required to rule on an unusual case.
This is a claim by beneficiaries in a life policy.
A man who passed away several years ago took out a life policy in 2006. In that year he was married to a woman whom he listed as a beneficiary.
Here it must be emphasized that this is a policy that is found with the deceased's employer and was prepared through him, and from a procedural point of view external agents have no possibility to see or touch it.
In 2009, the couple divorced when they have no children or joint property, which means that there is nothing connecting them.
A year later the deceased met another woman, married her and the couple had three children.
During the years of their marriage, the deceased took out several life insurance policies and registered the plaintiff as the beneficiary.
In 2019 he passed away after a battle with cancer, and before his death he asked the plaintiff to take a photo of his last instructions as a last will.
In the transcribed video, he told the plaintiff: "After my death - collect the policy amounts and benefits from the insurance company."
She was fired in the ninth month - what did the court decide?
The judge was moved, and she offered a compromise
Adv. Nitzan Harel (Photo: Yakir Barbi)
However, as mentioned, the policy was registered in the name of the previous wife, and therefore the insurance company, rightly in its view, refused to release the funds except with a court order.
According to the plaintiff's lawyers, from the office of Ken Dror Harel, who specialize in tort and insurance claims led by Nitzan Harel, the previous wife did not even know that he was a beneficiary of the policy.
According to them, only after they approached her as a formal respondent, "She was greedy for money and believed in some story about friendship that supposedly existed between them. There is no doubt that the deceased's will before his death was to bequeath to his wife and children the funds to which he is entitled."
During the hearing of the evidence, an unfortunate case related to the deceased and the beneficiary of the policy was revealed, in which it was said that their son had passed away and as a result they divorced.
The judge was heartbroken by the discovery, so she decided to offer a compromise.
And the widow agreed to it for the sake of certainty, and thus 75 percent of the policy funds were distributed to the widow and 25 percent remained with the beneficiary of the policy, the former wife of the deceased.
Of money
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life insurance