It does suck that you’re going through this. To be dealing with all that paperwork after losing a parent is hard. I went through some of it myself helping my Mom when Dad died last year.
That being said, to respond to points 3 and 4;
(regarding 3) - With 20 years in the insurance industry, I could understand that there’s only certain documents they can accept. I have limited documents I can use to show things like who the officers of a corporation are. Not saying the affidavit isn’t a good thing, it just may not be something they can use. Although I would say that a higher level manager may be able to approve that. I don’t personally like exceptions, but they aren’t that uncommon.
(regarding 4) - I don’t find it that strange that they would not ask for guardian paperwork any longer. It was only needed as long as you were trying to prove that you could receive the funds on your sons behalf. If (by his statement) you are no longer trying to do so, there’s no need to prove that you are his guardian. The only responsibility they have is to release the funds to your son when he turns 18.
I think then it’s time for you to write a letter CMRRR stating that they have 30 days to turn the money over with veiled threats that maybe if a judge asks them then they can cite this mystery law that they claim exist and that after the 30 days they can explain why they refuse to turn over the money to the insurance commissioner for your state and that it’ll be up to the judge to decide how much interest and damages you are owed after they pay your attorney fees and court costs.
I’ll be happy to give updates when and if anything else happens with this matter, though I think they’ll be boring. I promise to foam at the mouth with as much self-righteous indignation as I can muster, though. I owe it to Dopers in return for their support in this thread.
[QUOTE=Saint Cade]
after the 30 days they can explain why they refuse to turn over the money to the insurance commissioner for your state
[/QUOTE]
See, therein lies the problem. We HAVE no state. If we did, I could get them the papers they want.
Actually, you have two states you can use - the one they are in and the one your mom was in. Both of those DOIs have a regulatory relationship with NWM. Use them, they get paid to do exactly this kind of stuff all the time.
The problem is the beneficiary is a minor. If NWM gave you the check AND you proceeded to spend it all on hookers and blow, when your son turns 18 he would then sue NWM saying WTF did you give to them for, I’m the beneficiary. Guess who is then on the hook for another 65K? For this reason NWM wants some guarantees that they aren’t going to pay 130K out.
Naming a minor as a primary beneficiary is never a good idea. An attorney show know that.
But they are not going to take possession of the money. My understanding is that it is going straight into an account in the son’s name. That’s CC’s issue. Oh you want us to disburse the funds? Then we’re going to ask for impossible paperwork. Oh you want us to keep the money? Then a phone call suffices.
And the next day the parents spend it all, guess who gets sued in a couple of years? Not the 'rents.
If NWM holds the money until the beneficiary is 18 and they cut a check they are in the clear.
Some of the above posts indicate to me that I have not made it clear what we had directed NM to do with the money. An account IN OUR SON’S NAME was set up - the money was not going to be transferred to me, it was being transferred to my son.
2 and 3 aren’t necessarily true. Children’s accounts with special conditions exist in many countries; I opened one for my nephew when he was born. The account is in his name, with his parents as second-signatures: withdrawing money above a very small amount (which grows with the child’s age) requires sigs from all three; the parents cannot withdraw without the child. The two accounts that were opened for me at my own birth didn’t even have parental second-sigs.
The bank tried to give me shit about not being able to open an account for a child without being a parent or guardian, but they relented without any bloodshed.
Since we have capitulated but don’t really trust them, I called to confirm that Northwestern Mutual has set up an account in our son’s name and are sending us the details in writing, plus will send us regular statements. They confirm that this will happen and that it takes 2-3 weeks after a request is submitted (by them) for a new account to be set up. They say they completed the paperwork on 4 September. Given that we are far away and mail takes forever to reach us, I am giving them 6 weeks – if I have heard nothing by 20 November, I’ll call again.
–
Since I can’t let this go (hey, would I post in the Pit if I could let it go?), let me state once again, for the very few people in this thread that think I’m being unreasonable, that** it’s okay by me if Northwestern Mutual asks for proof of guardianship!** I get it, and I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is that they are so shifty about claiming that they are requiring the court paperwork because of a law - but when asked to produce this law, they can’t, so they are either lying or incompetent, take your pick.
Most likely, there is no law, and this is simply their policy. Okay, fine - own up to it! The problem then is that they would be hard pressed to explain why, if this is just a protective company policy, they can’t work with me to find a reasonable alternative, such as a notarized affidavit from the US embassy, which I have offered to get for them and which the US State Department also recommended I offer them (yup, I called the US State Department about this - they are actually pretty good about trying to help US citizens living abroad).
So, here we are. If this is the last post in the thread, I think it is safe to assume we got the paperwork and are moving on. Otherwise, expect an update after 20 November when I call them to find out why I haven’t received anything.
Forgive me for raising a zombie, but there is an idiotic postscript to this saga. Since I wrote, CairoSon has turned 18, spoken with a financial advisor, and generally prepared himself to take charge of his finances.
So, upon turning 18 he called Northwestern to ask about transferring the funds into a Wells Fargo account he has established. The response was “er, um…yeah, we need to send you some paperwork I guess; we’ll get back to you right away, what’s your email address?”
Three weeks go by and not a peep, so he calls again. For the sake of telling the story, let’s say my son’s name is “Darryl.” As he first started sending emails when we lived in Cairo, his email address happens to be darrylfromegypt@yahoo-dot-com.
So when he calls again they say, “hmm…we started a file on this…just a second…” They eventually come back and say, “oh yeah - your email address is suspicious, so we have our security people looking into it.”
So then they ask him for an email address again, and he gives them his school e-mail address instead. I don’t know if this would also create problems, since it is in Indonesia, but things didn’t even get that far, because they said “hey, that’s not the same e-mail address you gave us before, you have to use the same one.”
We now await their next excuse for not transferring the funds expeditiously. My guess is another couple of weeks will go by and he’ll have to call again to find out.
I’m a little curious about how one proves that one is the guardian of one’s own child. Other than a birth certificate, they don’t give you anything to prove that unless you’re not the biological parent (or you’ve been through a divorce and there is a custody order).
Okay - final update. CairoSon had two more foot-dragging phone calls with them. In the more boring one, they claimed that they hadn’t sent him the necessary paperwork because they had recorded his email address incorrectly.
In the more interesting call, they bluntly asked him, “What did your grandmother die of?” (I assume this was in the service of proving he was who he said he was.) I think that’s a little questionable - he was 15 when she died and 18 now, so I guess it’s not out of bounds. But, it’s kind a traumatic question, no? Plus if he was a good enough fraudster to try to lay his hands on someone else’s life insurance payout, one assumes he’d easily know the answer to that question.
Anyway…they finally e-mailed him the forms he needed to complete and fax back in order to request that the funds be transferred into his account. It took a while, but THEY DID IT! HE HAS THE MONEY NOW!
(Lucky kid. Thankfully he has a good head on his shoulders and won’t spend it all on hookers and blow. At worst he’ll order a bit more pizza delivery than he should, or be slightly extravagant in a gift for his girlfriend. But the vast majority of it he will save to pay for graduate school, which I’m pretty sure is what my mother would have wanted him to do with the money.)
