What to do when a Kansas City Life account holder dies

No. Kansas City Life's own guidance is that it may not be able to pay benefits to a minor beneficiary, because a minor cannot give a proper receipt, and it warns that parents often expect the proceeds to be paid to them and cannot be. At claim time the money waits for a court-appointed guardian or conservator, or a custodian. The carrier's stated preference is to fix this in advance: establish a trust for the minor's benefit and name the TRUSTEE as beneficiary on Form 299SP. If the owner does not want a trust, Kansas City Life accepts custodian wording -- "[name of minor] if an adult, otherwise to [name of adult] as custodian for [name of minor] under the Uniform Transfers to Minors Act as enacted in this state" -- and in South Carolina and Vermont the designation refers to the Uniform Gifts to Minors Act instead. Under a custodianship, anything left when the custodianship ends (usually at the age of majority) must be paid out to the former minor.

Yes, and Kansas City Life publishes them. Massachusetts: the beneficiary form must be witnessed by a disinterested third party, and the form carries a Massachusetts-only witness line. Oklahoma: naming a charitable, benevolent, educational, or religious institution requires the signature of both the owner and the insured. Georgia, Michigan, Texas, and Oklahoma: a funeral home cannot be named as beneficiary (Michigan and Oklahoma allow a collateral assignment to the funeral home instead); Illinois allows it only after issue, not at issue; Minnesota, Montana, and South Dakota allow it only if the designation says "as their interest may appear." Georgia also requires children to be named individually rather than as "children born of the marriage." In a community property state, if the spouse is not the primary beneficiary, that spouse may have a statutory claim to part of the proceeds where premiums were paid with community property funds. And on divorce: some states automatically revoke a spousal designation, so an owner who wants to keep an ex-spouse as beneficiary must file a new Form 299SP showing the relationship as "ex-spouse."

Call the Life Claims Department at 800-821-6164, ext. 6080, file notice online at https://www.kclife.com/contact.aspx under the "Policy Claims" subject, or email kclclaims@kclife.com. Kansas City Life then mails the claim forms to the beneficiary; there is no downloadable individual-life claim form. Return the forms with a certified death certificate and photo ID to the Life Claims Department, P.O. Box 219282, Kansas City, MO 64121-9282, or fax 816-753-1198 -- note this is a different box and fax from policy service (P.O. Box 219272, fax 816-931-3585). Before assuming the payout is a lump sum, check whether the owner filed the Income Assured Option (Designation of Death Benefit Payout), a no-cost endorsement that lets the OWNER fix the payout in advance as a lump sum plus an income stream of five to 30 years, paid annually, semi-annually, quarterly, or monthly. If it was elected, that election governs. Two other carrier-specific points: a group life claim through an employer starts with the employer filing the Notice of Claim (Form 305), which is explicitly not itself a claim form, and an Old American Insurance Company policy is claimed at 800-733-6242.