Life insurance: instructions for recovering the capital after a death
To some extent, the satisfaction of being the happy beneficiary of a life insurance contract would be marred by the difficulty of recovering the capital! It is true that the formalities required are often discouraging. Between the number of official documents to provide and the complexity of certain procedures, particularly fiscal ones, the preparation of a complete file can take three or four weeks. And even more if the insurance company drags its feet to do its job, which is unfortunately not uncommon. The beneficiary of the contract therefore has every interest in taking as many precautions as possible in order to avoid errors and setbacks. Summary of the rights and duties of each person.
Annual newsletter
A good way for relatives of the deceased to know the existence of the contract. The insurer is required to send the insured once a year (generally between the months of January and March) an information bulletin recalling the characteristics of his life insurance (value, funds subscribed, fees charged, etc.). It is often thanks to these bulletins, if they are kept by the insured (as advised), that the contract will be revealed to relatives. They will then need to contact the insurer in order to obtain the identity of the beneficiaries, who will be able to initiate the procedures giving rise to the right to payment of the capital. However, sometimes the name of the beneficiaries does not appear in the contract, but in a will deposited with a notary. In which case it is up to the latter to intervene, both with the designated beneficiaries and the insurer.
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Search for beneficiaries
A 2016 law clarified the obligations of insurers. How can you be sure to receive your money if you have not been aware of the existence of the contract? Insurers are normally obliged to search for beneficiaries – through genealogists if necessary – but not all are reactive, as evidenced by the 5.4 billion euros sleeping on the contracts of deceased insureds (figure from the APRC, the sector’s supervisory authority). Fortunately, a 2016 law clarified their obligations: companies must now consult at least once a year the National Directory for the Identification of Natural Persons (RNIPP), which allows them to identify their deceased customers. They also have the option of contacting the tax authorities to obtain the address of untraceable beneficiaries. Finally, their contracts must be declared in the central life insurance file (Ficovie), a document that can be consulted by notaries.
In theory, the problem should therefore be solved, either by the insurer or by a notary. To be on the safe side, people wondering if their name might not appear on the contract taken out by a relative have every interest in contacting Agira, an association which lists all beneficiaries of life insurance. And if the death of the insured is more than ten years old, it is the Ciclade.fr site which will provide them with information, knowing that the capital is then recoverable by a beneficiary only during the thirty years following the death of the beneficiary. insured.
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First contact
With some insurers, putting together a file can take more than a month. Once the beneficiary has been identified by the insurer, the latter will return to him within fifteen days (it is the law) the list of documents necessary for the payment of the capital. However, the rest is likely to be slower, as a complete file can take more than a month. Because, even if the formalities to be completed by the beneficiary and the information to be provided to the insurer are almost identical in all cases (see below), each company has its own operating mode.
Note: a beneficiary can always give up pocketing the money intended for him, by designating to the insurer the person in favor of whom he withdraws. If it does not designate anyone in particular, it is the beneficiary (ies) immediately behind it in the clause of the contract who will receive the capital. As for the heirs of the deceased, they have every right to receive their share of the capital, even if they have officially renounced to collect the inheritance.
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Supporting documents
The list of administrative documents to be provided to the company is often long. In addition to the subscriber’s death certificate, various documents must be sent by the beneficiary to the insurer in order to justify his rights:
- the original of the contract;
- a bank account number ;
- a copy of both sides of their identity card or passport;
- a certificate of inheritance devolution or an act of notoriety if the beneficiary is designated in the clause of the contract as spouse, child, grandchild, or heir (these acts, issued by a notary, specify the family link with the deceased, enough to allow the insurer to accurately determine the identity of the beneficiaries);
- where applicable, a copy of the PACS, the certificate of cohabitation or cohabitation (or a sworn declaration);
- a copy of the family record book (provided by their legal representative if the beneficiary is a minor);
- a copy of the judgment, issued by his guardian, if the beneficiary is a protected adult.
Some insurers require all of these documents, others are satisfied with only the most important.
Warning : To avoid having their file considered incomplete, and thus wasting time, the beneficiary has every interest in sending it by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt, and to keep all useful photocopies at home.
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Tax certificate
The beneficiary must prove that he is in good standing with the tax authorities before having the money. As we have seen, for contracts taken out after November 20, 1991, payments made after 70 years are subject to conventional inheritance tax when their amount exceeds 30,500 euros. In this case, the insurer will only pay the capital once the tax situation has been rectified. The beneficiary must then provide him with a « certificate of payment » (the duties have been paid) or a « certificate of non-exigibility » (no duties were due). For this, he will ask the notary to establish a « partial » declaration of inheritance, in which the amounts paid after 70 years and the corresponding rights will be specified (you can write this declaration yourself using the form available on the Impots website. .gouv.fr, and by requesting information from the insurer).
The document must then be sent to the tax service, which will issue, after verification, the certificate required by the insurer, who can then proceed to payment of the capital. To avoid paying inheritance tax in advance, the beneficiary can ask the insurer to pay them in his place, and to deduct them from the capital to which he is entitled.
To note : he is exempt from these formalities if he is the spouse, child or grandchild of the deceased insured, does not have a domicile located abroad, and the sums involved remain lower at 7,600 euros.
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Sworn statement
To ensure that the tax allowance has not already been used. Most often, in the event of payments by the subscriber before his 70th birthday, the capital raised is exempt from taxes up to 152,500 euros. But this reduction applies to all contracts taken out by the insured. If the beneficiary has already taken advantage of it for other contracts, he must then notify the insurer, specifying in what proportions this reduction has been used. This declaration takes the form of a « sworn declaration », the model of which is provided by a notary or by the insurer. Provided with this document, the latter will be able to determine whether or not he should levy taxes (he will be released from any liability in the event of a false declaration).
To note : being exempt from all tax, married or civil partnership beneficiaries do not have to make this declaration on their honor.
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Capital settlement
The legal deadline for releasing funds, set at one month, is not always met. As soon as the file is complete, the insurer legally has one month to release the capital (by check or bank transfer). So much for the theory. In practice, things usually take longer than expected. First, because it is not the insurer itself that we are dealing with, but the « succession » service behind it, which is sometimes only reachable through a telephone platform, whose interlocutors are more or less informed about the situation. Another cause of delay appears when there are several beneficiaries and one of them is slow to appear. Some insurers accept without flinching to serve beneficiaries who come their way, others are intractable and demand that they all have been found.
To note : it is possible, when the contract holds financial securities (equity funds, SCPI, etc.), to recover them instead of being paid in euros. A practice which nevertheless risks further increasing the deadlines for payment of capital …
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Late payment
The insurer suffers penalties equal to double then triple the legal rate. As provided for in the Insurance Code, beyond the payment period of one month, the unpaid capital automatically produces interest equal to « twice the legal rate for two months, then three times the legal rate ».
The insurer can then be exposed to relatively heavy penalties, especially if he drags his feet for more than two months. But sometimes it takes more to impress the insurer. The beneficiary can then seize the mediator of the insurance company, or even sue the latter. The payment of the capital, if it is greater than 10,000 euros, may even be required in « summary proceedings », that is to say in urgency, at the tribunal de grande instance, a procedure which however requires the intervention of a lawyer. , therefore costs to pay.
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Post-mortem compensation
The contract still produces interest after the death of the insured. Since 2016, the law obliges insurers to revalue the guaranteed capital on the contract between the date of death and the payment of this capital to the beneficiary, which was rarely the case before (savings then grew for the sole benefit of the insurer. ). The yield served must be at least equal either to the average of the last twelve months of the average rate of French government bonds (TME), or to the last TME available on November 1 of the previous year.
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What is the Ficovie file for?
Agira and Ciclade are not the only possible aids for beneficiaries who do not know their designation. Indeed, since January 2016, insurers must declare all their contracts over 7,500 euros on a special file, called « Ficovie », which contains the amounts subscribed, but also the identity of the insured and that of the beneficiaries.
Originally designed to fight tax evasion (and identify policyholders who fail to report investment gains to the tax authorities), this new file is another good tool made available to those who want to know if they are. .
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