Home Life insurance Life insurance basics How to find a lost life insurance policy and claim the benefit How to find a lost life insurance policy and claim the benefit Search the person’s bank statements, mail and papers for the insurer’s name first, then use the free NAIC policy locator and unclaimed property sites, and pay $75 for an MIB search only if those come up empty. View Carriers Please enter valid zip Compare top carriers in your area Written by Maryalene LaPonsieMaryalene LaPonsieStaff WriterMaryalene LaPonsie is a staff writer for Insure.com. She has 25 years of professional writing experience. She specializes in personal finance — insurance, investing and retirement. | Reviewed by Nupur GambhirNupur GambhirEditor-in-ChiefNupur Gambhir is the editor-in-chief of Insure.com and a licensed life, health and disability insurance agent in New York with seven years of experience covering insurance. Her expertise has been featured in Bloomberg News, Forbes Advisor, CNET, Fortune, Slate, Real Simple, Lifehacker, The Balance, The Financial Gym and MSN. She holds a BA in Economics from The Ohio State University.VIEW FULL PROFILESee moreSee less | Updated onNovember 12, 2026 Why you can trust Insure.com Quality Verified At Insure.com, we are committed to providing the timely, accurate and expert information consumers need to make smart insurance decisions. All our content is written and reviewed by industry professionals and insurance experts. Our team carefully vets our rate data to ensure we only provide reliable and up-to-date insurance pricing. For a deeper dive into our process, see our complete methodology. We follow the highest editorial standards. Our content is based solely on objective research and data gathering. We maintain strict editorial independence to ensure unbiased coverage of the insurance industry. You can find a lost life insurance policy by searching the deceased person’s bank statements, mail and papers for the insurer’s name, then asking their employer and financial advisor. If those records turn up nothing, the free NAIC Life Insurance Policy Locator sends your request to participating insurers, and MIB’s Policy Locator Service searches past insurance applications for a $75 fee. Finding the policy is the step that gets the death benefit paid, because the insurer pays only after a beneficiary files a claim. Follow these steps to find a lost life insurance policy The steps below run from the free records you already have to the paid search, so you spend $75 only if nothing else names the insurer. Review bank statements for premium payments. A recurring payment names the insurer you can call to claim the death benefit. Search tax returns and financial papers. Interest from a permanent life policy or a policy document can point you to the company. Contact the person’s employer. HR can confirm workplace group coverage and tell you how to claim it. Ask their attorney or financial advisor. Their asset records may already list the insurer and policy number. Search the NAIC Life Insurance Policy Locator. One free request reaches participating insurers, and a company contacts you if you’re the beneficiary. Check state unclaimed property databases. These hold benefits an insurer couldn’t pay out, and you can claim them for free. Pay for MIB’s Policy Locator Service if nothing turns up. The $75 search can name a company where the person applied for coverage. Check bank statements and personal papers to find a lost life insurance policy The fastest way to find a lost life insurance policy is to search the deceased person’s own records, because a premium payment, bill or policy document names the insurance company you need to call. Start with these records before using any online search tool. Scan two to three years of bank statements. A recurring payment to a life insurance company names the insurer, so you can call its claims department and ask whether a death benefit is owed. Look through recent tax returns. Some permanent life insurance policies pay interest or dividends that can show up on federal or state returns and point you to the company that holds the policy. Watch the mail for 12 months. A full year of mail catches even a once-a-year premium notice, which names the insurer you need to call. Call their employer’s human resources department. If the person was working when they died, HR can tell you whether they had group life insurance through work and how to claim it. Ask their attorney and financial advisor. Estate planners and advisors may keep a list of the person’s assets, so they may already have the insurer’s name and the policy number on file. Open the safe deposit box and home files. Policy paperwork kept in a safe deposit box, filing cabinet or home safe gives you the insurer and policy number in one place. Search the NAIC Life Insurance Policy Locator for free The National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ Life Insurance Policy Locator lets you submit one free request that participating life insurance and annuity companies check against their own records, so you don’t have to contact each insurer yourself. The tool only searches for people who have died. An insurer contacts you directly only if it finds a policy and you’re the beneficiary. According to the NAIC, you won’t hear back if no policy matches, if you aren’t the beneficiary or if you don’t have legal authority to get the policy information. A search can take 90 business days or more, so start it while you go through the person’s records. The NAIC’s request form asks for your own name, mailing address and email, plus these details about the person who died. Social Security number or individual taxpayer identification number Legal first and last name Date of birth and date of death Veteran status Your relationship to the person Search unclaimed property databases for benefits already sent to the state Life insurance benefits an insurer can’t pay out eventually go to a state unclaimed property office, which holds the money until the beneficiary claims it. MissingMoney.com searches unclaimed property records from participating states in one place at no cost, and the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators and the National Association of State Treasurers back the site. Not every state shares its records with MissingMoney.com, so also search the unclaimed property office in each state where the person lived. Your state insurance department can help with a search too, and some run their own policy locator tools. What to read next What happens to the cash value of a whole life insurance policy when you die? 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Show more Pay for an MIB Policy Locator search when the free tools come up empty MIB keeps records of life insurance applications for its 420 U.S. and Canadian member companies, and its Policy Locator Service searches those records for a $75 fee. A match names the insurance company, the date of the application and how to contact the company, so you can ask whether a policy was issued and whether a benefit is owed. A match doesn’t confirm that a policy was issued or is still payable, and the report doesn’t include beneficiary information. The executor or administrator of the estate can order a search, and if no executor has been named, a surviving spouse or the closest surviving relative may qualify. To order a search, mail MIB a notarized application, an original death certificate and a $75 money order or certified bank check. MIB returns the death certificate with your report, which arrives by mail within 21 business days, and the fee isn’t refunded if the search finds nothing. Know which policies an MIB search can’t find before you pay $75 An MIB search covers only life insurance applications that went through an individual review at a member company since Jan. 1, 1996, so some coverage never shows up in the results. MIB lists these exclusions for its search. Applications made before 1996 aren’t in the records. MIB’s database starts on Jan. 1, 1996, so use the person’s papers and the NAIC locator to find an older policy. Policies paying $100,000 or less generally don’t appear. MIB says its search generally won’t cover these lower amounts, so search bank records and the NAIC locator for a smaller policy. Workplace group coverage doesn’t appear. Employer life insurance issued without an individual health review isn’t in MIB’s records, so ask the person’s HR department instead. Guaranteed issue policies don’t appear. These policies, one of the types of final expense insurance, skip health questions, so MIB’s records don’t include them. Military life insurance generally doesn’t appear. MIB says a search is unlikely to turn up coverage issued through military service. California residents can’t use the service. MIB doesn’t accept a search when you or the person who died lived in California. Gather these details before you call the insurer to file a claim Once you know the insurance company, you can call its claims department to start a claim for the death benefit. Having the person’s details ready lets you answer the insurer’s questions on that first call, and our guide to filing a life insurance claim walks through what happens after. Insurers ask for these details about the person who died. Full legal name Date of birth Date of death Social Security number, if you have it Certified death certificate Policy number, if you found one Avoid these mistakes that leave life insurance benefits unclaimed Life insurance benefits go unclaimed when a family stops after one search or skips a place the person held coverage, which leaves the death benefit unpaid until someone files a claim. Watch for these mistakes as you search. Waiting for the insurer to reach out. An insurer may not know about the death, so file a claim with every company you find rather than waiting for a call. Running only one search. The NAIC locator, MIB and unclaimed property sites each search different records, so using all of them can turn up a policy that one search misses. Skipping workplace coverage. Group life insurance through an employer won’t show up in an MIB search, so call HR to confirm it. Throwing out or not forwarding mail. A discarded premium notice can be the only record that names the insurer. Tell your family where your policy is so benefits don’t go unclaimed Life insurance benefits go unclaimed when beneficiaries can’t find a policy or don’t know it exists. The NAIC reports that its policy locator has matched families with more than $16 billion in lost and unclaimed benefits since the tool launched in November 2016, including more than $3 billion since Aug. 31, 2025. Telling your beneficiaries the name of your life insurance company and where you keep the policy lets them file a claim right away instead of searching for it. Review who you’ve named on your policy at the same time, since the insurer pays the beneficiary listed on the policy regardless of what your will says. What to remember when looking for a lost life insurance policy The steps below run from the free records you already have to the paid search, so you spend $75 only if nothing else names the insurer. Order several certified death certificates at once. Insurers ask for one with each claim and an MIB search requires an original, so extra copies let you file every claim without waiting on another order. Never pay a company to search unclaimed property for you. MissingMoney.com and state unclaimed property offices let you search and file a claim for free, so a paid finder takes a cut of a benefit you could claim in full. Frequently asked questions Is there a time limit to claim a life insurance policy? A life insurance claim generally has no filing deadline as long as the policy was active when the person died. If the insurer can’t reach the beneficiary, it eventually turns the money over to a state unclaimed property office, where beneficiaries keep the right to claim it with no time limit. What is the fastest way to find a lost life insurance policy? Finding the policy documents among the person’s papers is the fastest route, because they name the insurer and policy number you need to file a claim. Bank statements showing premium payments come next, since a payment names the insurer. Can you find out if you’re the beneficiary on a life insurance policy? The policy documents name the beneficiary, and without them, the insurance company usually shares that only with the beneficiary or the estate’s executor. The NAIC locator holds no beneficiary information, but a participating insurer contacts you directly if it finds a policy that names you. Is there a free way to search for a lost life insurance policy? The NAIC Life Insurance Policy Locator and MissingMoney.com both let you search at no cost. MIB’s Policy Locator Service is the paid option at $75, and that fee isn’t refunded if the search finds nothing. Sources NAIC. NAIC Life Insurance Policy Locator Tool Helps Match Consumers with More Than $16 Billion in Lost and Unclaimed Benefits. NAIC. Learn How to Use the NAIC Life Insurance Policy Locator. NAIC. Life Insurance Policy Locator. MIB. Policy Locator Service. MIB. Frequently Asked Questions about the Policy Locator Service. NAUPA. NAST and NAUPA Relaunch MissingMoney.com. MissingMoney.com. Search for Unclaimed Property. × Get Free Life Insurance Quotes Today! Zip Code Please enter valid zip Age Age16 – 2021 – 2425 – 3435 – 4445 – 5455 – 6465+ Coverage Amount Coverage AmountUnder $50,000$50,000 – $100,000$100,000 – $200,000$200,000 – $300,000$400,000 – $500,000$500,000 – $1,000,000$1,000,000 – $2,000,000$2,000,000 – $5,000,000$5,000,000+ Coverage Type Coverage TypeWhole LifeTerm LifeFinal ExpenseNot Sure Gender GenderMaleFemaleNon-Binary Tobacco Use Yes No Compare Quotes Maryalene LaPonsieStaff Writer . .Maryalene LaPonsie is a staff writer for Insure.com. She has 25 years of professional writing experience. She specializes in personal finance — insurance, investing and retirement. 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By Alisha Ambre Average life insurance rates by age, gender and health By Alisha Ambre On this page Check bank statements and personal papers to find a lost life insurance policySearch the NAIC Life Insurance Policy Locator for freeSearch unclaimed property databases for benefits already sent to the statePay for an MIB Policy Locator search when the free tools come up emptyKnow which policies an MIB search can’t find before you pay $75Gather these details before you call the insurer to file a claimAvoid these mistakes that leave life insurance benefits unclaimedTell your family where your policy is so benefits don’t go unclaimedFrequently asked questionsSources ZIP Code Please enter valid ZIP See rates 1-888-984-2609