What to do when a Liberty Mutual account holder dies

As of April 23, 2026, new direct-to-consumer life insurance offered through Liberty Mutual is bound by Ethos, a digital life insurance platform that operates as a licensed agency and third-party administrator. Ethos does not underwrite policies itself; instead, its underwriting engine selects an issuing carrier for each application. The carrier shown on your policy documents is the company that actually holds the contract and processes claims. Ethos's carrier partners include Legal & General America (also known as Banner Life), Ameritas Life Insurance Corp., TruStage Financial Group (CMFG Life), and Senior Life Insurance Company. Check your policy or your Ethos account at ethos.com to confirm the issuing carrier before initiating a beneficiary change or death claim.

No. Liberty Mutual is primarily a property and casualty insurer, and a P&C policy is not an estate-transfer asset: an auto, home, condo, or renters policy has no beneficiary designation, no POD or TOD, no cash value, and no death benefit. There is nothing for an heir to claim and nothing that passes outside probate. What an executor actually has to do is the opposite of a claim: keep the coverage in force while the estate still owns the car or the house — an unoccupied, uninsured house is one of the most common uninsured losses in an estate, and carriers apply vacancy conditions to it — and then cancel or transfer the policy when the property is sold or retitled to an heir. Call Liberty Mutual at 1-800-290-8711; cancellations are handled by phone and the process and any fees vary by state (https://www.libertymutual.com/cancelling-your-policy). Any collision or liability claim that was already open is paid under the policy terms to the policy's payee, not as a death benefit. A life insurance policy is the only Liberty Mutual product that pays a beneficiary at death.

An ILIT can own life insurance policies obtained through Liberty Mutual, whether issued through the Ethos partnership (new policies) or by Protective Life / Liberty Life Assurance (legacy policies). To avoid the three-year lookback rule under IRC Section 2035 — which includes transferred policy proceeds in the insured's estate if death occurs within three years of the transfer — the ILIT trustee should apply as the policy owner from inception rather than transferring an existing policy into the trust. For legacy policies, an ownership transfer to an ILIT is possible; contact Policyholder Services at 1-800-451-7065 to request an ownership change form and complete the Trust Certification Form. Liberty Mutual does not establish ILITs; consult an estate attorney.

Legacy Liberty Mutual / Liberty Life Assurance policies are claimed on Protective Life's Claimant Statement (form PL-CS-AE-2024-04, downloadable at https://www.lad3.protective.com/protectivelife/forms/pdf/PLICO_O.pdf). Its instructions give trustees a useful shortcut: rather than sending the entire trust instrument, Protective will accept just the FIRST PAGE, the page naming the trustee and successor trustee, and the SIGNATURE PAGE — or a Certificate of Trust in place of the trust document altogether. The trustee (or successor trustee, whichever is appropriate) completes the Claimant Statement and signs in the capacity of trustee; if the trust has since been dissolved, the dissolution paperwork must be provided. Each beneficiary files a separate Claimant Statement, and every signature must be witnessed by an unrelated witness. Claims of $500,000 or more require original forms and an original certified death certificate by mail; below that, Protective accepts copies by email (claims@protective.com) or fax (205-268-6833). For Ethos-issued policies (April 2026 and later), the issuing carrier sets the trust documentation and will require the trust agreement and trust tax ID at claim time; start the claim at help.ethos.com.