Hunt for what you're owed in life insurance

As a 21-year-old working at the Fort Worth bomber plant in 1953, Roberta Welch decided to buy a $500 life insurance policy on her husband, figuring it might be needed for burial expenses someday.

She bought the policy from Rio Grande National Life Insurance Co. of Dallas, owned by Robert Baxter, who had a Texas-size ego. In a Time magazine story in the late 1940s about the nation's economy, he was quoted as saying, "This is a great world and the U.S. is the greatest country in the world -- and Texas is the greatest state in the U.S. and Dallas is the greatest city in Texas and the Rio Grande is the greatest insurance company in Dallas."

So, every week, for 20 years, someone from Rio Grande, and then its successor, Kentucky Central Life, came by and picked up Welch's weekly insurance premium payment -- all of 32 cents.

By 1973, the policy was paid off. Welch put the paperwork away, and when her husband died 12 years later, she decided to hold off on cashing in the policy.

Years passed, and she lost track of the policy. Then, two years ago, she found it and decided to collect. She tried to call Rio Grande and Kentucky Central Life but both had gone out of business (KCL went insolvent in Kentucky in the mid-1990s).

She contacted Lincoln Financial Group, a company that she thought had inherited her policy, but they couldn't find it.

Welch, who is 76, thought it was a lost cause.

Then she contacted The Watchdog.

It turns out that millions of dollars' worth of life insurance policies are never cashed because relatives don't know about them, policyholders forget about them or they lose the papers.

Sometimes a company changes hands so many times that it takes a little detective work to track the policy down.

That's what happened here. Welch's Rio Grande policy finally ended up at Reliable Life Insurance in 1991.

Welch, who has lived at the same address in Hurst for decades, said she never received notices about her policy's status. When she tried to locate the company last year, her request for information to Lincoln Financial was answered with a request for more information and this curt reply: "We were unable to identify a policy number that it should be applied to."

When The Watchdog contacted Lincoln Financial, the company took a second look, and this time it found a link to her policy at Reliable Insurance.

Lincoln officials contacted Reliable and arranged for Welch to file the proper paperwork to retrieve her $500 -- plus interest.

"You were my last chance," she told The Watchdog.

But that's not true. It may take some digging and patience, but a paid-up policy must be covered, even if the originating company is no longer in business.

State insurance officials can often help consumers track down the information. Kelvin Beck, senior insurance specialist for the Texas Insurance Department's consumer protection division, helps consumers locate lost policies. He says Welch's story is not that unusual.

"You have to follow each path to a current or active company," Beck says. "It's basically like [tracing] genealogy."

FIND A LOST POLICY

Start with the Texas Department of Insurance, which has resources to help you trace. Call 800-252-3439 or visit www.tdi.state.tx.us. The Web site tracks recent company histories, too.

Search old records for more information, ask relatives, seek out the family insurance agent.

For $75, MIB checks some insurance information that may help you find a lost policy. Records go back to 1995. Call 781-751-6000 or visit www.policylocator.com. MIB reports a 30 percent success rate.

States have guaranty associations where insolvent insurance companies' claims might be paid. The national organization, with links to states, is at www.nolhga.com. Texas' association is www.txlifega.org.

Some insurance companies, such as New York Life at www.newyorklife.com, offer database checks, where you can see if your family has old policies.

Check with the Texas unclaimed property fund at www.window.state.tx.us/up or call 1-800-654-FIND (3463).

Other services check national databases, such as www.unclaimedassets.com, which costs $18 for a search. Also, check with www.missingmoney.org, nupn.com and www.unclaimed.org.

Be informed. Talk to family members about policies and keep all insurance documents together.

Source: Various insurance industry experts