Earlier this year I found (7) life insurance policies in my old papers that I had obviously forgotten about. They were given to me by my grandmother (deceased now) after my father's death in 1979 and for whatever reason she did not explain what they were. My parents had divorced and I had not been close to my father when he died. I was in my mid 20's at the time and I had a lot going on in my life. I obviously put the policies away and totally forgot about them until just a few months ago while I was going through some old papers of mine and actually took a good look at them. They were all issued by "The National Life and Accident Insurance Company" back in the 1950's and the company is now "American General Life and Accident Insurance Company". Http://www.aigag.com
I am getting nowhere with this company in obtaining the status of these policies. Every time I called I was told something different. On June 21 I was told nothing at all could be found when I'd been told previously that 1 policy had been cashed, another time I was told 4 had been cashed and the others could not be found. My sister, mother and myself are the beneficiaries listed on 4 of the policies and on the other 3 policies my sister, myself and a brother who died in 1991, are the insured with my father as beneficiary. We have never made any claims, and I am sure these policies where all paid up at the time of my fathers death or my grandmother would not have given them to me. They are all small life policies ranging from $1,000.00 to $2,500.00 and one for $7,500.00 and I know some of them, are whole life. I am admittedly not very smart about insurance but I am learning fast.
As instructed by the customer service representative I spoke with last April at American General, I sent detailed letters with copies of everything (including a copy of my father's death certificate) to their "claims" and "research" departments requesting information on the status of these policies. I sent everything certified mail and have the receipts showing they were received on April 15. After waiting over 2 months I called again. After about an hour and a half of filling in the details of my situation and being put on hold, the customers service representative I was speaking with came back on the line and said she could not find any thing. I found this very hard to believe because the other customer service representatives I had spoken with the previous times I had called, had at least found something! She did give me the American General Information Exchange number to call, however after calling that number I was completely dismissed by that customer service representative. I was asked my name and social security number and told it would be looked into. I had given no details of the situation to this person so I asked the woman on the other end of the line if she might need more information and she replied she had all the information she needed. End of conversation.
I was so angry at being dismissed like that! I searched the web trying to find some help besides going through one of those "unclaimed money" sites. I'm located in Illinois and I found this site http://www.idfpr.com (Illinois Division of Insurance) and fired off an e-mail explaining the situation and asked what could I do, in the "ask a question" link. Just a short time later I received a response and was told to file a complaint and that they would contact American General on my behalf. I received an e-mail and a mailed copy of the letter from their consumer services with a complaint number, informing me that an analyst has been assigned to my complaint. Maybe they will get something done, but I doubt it.
All I want to find out is the status of these policies that I'm holding. It really should not be that difficult since I have the policies, numbers, and all the information they need. All I can say is if you have old insurance policies through American General Life & Accident Insurance Company you are probably going to be sorry.
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