Estate planning and probate law, distribution of life insurance to beneficiaries, exempt from probate

I cannot tell from your question what state your father was a resident of so please keep in mind I am only licensed to practice law in Florida. Life insurance death benefits are typically distributed to the named beneficiaries when the life insurance company receives notice of the death and a death certificate. If you have the life insurance company name, I would call them to notify of your father's death and ask if you are the beneficiary. If you are not, it is unlikely they will give you any information. If you are, they will likely speak to you after you provide proof of who you are and his death certificate. If you don't know the name of the life insurance company, the next resource would be presumably his wife even though you may not be on the best of terms. If she is not helpful, go online to the county court website-probate division to determine who the Personal Representative/Executor of your father's estate might be and contact them. If his wife is the Personal Representative and she has not been helpful, then look through all your old documents from your father to see if there are any clues. If you have access to his old banking records, know his life insurance agent or his financial planner/CPA, they MIGHT be willing to help you. I hope this helps!

In the era of privacy rights this can be difficult. There is no database that all insurance companies feed policy holders and beneficiary information into. This basically means you have to contact the insurance company. Thus the difficulty if you do not know the company's name. I hope this helps.

Some questions I ask clients to help them find the right company include:
- who told you about the policy
- who else was listening
- who else might know about the policy (e.g. who paid the policy premiums)
- did he know any insurance agents
- what companies are prevalent in the area
- could it have been mail order (usually smaller face values)
- was it term or whole life