Dear Mrs Macaulay,

I encouraged my husband to take out an insurance policy in the event that anything should happen to him. He objected at first, saying he doesn’t believe in insurance policies. He eventually took out a policy, but hid it from me. I later learned he has his grandchild as the beneficiary. The child is a minor. I would like to know if he should die before me, could I have the money paid out to me, due to the fact that I am his wife and I am totally responsible for him, and would be the one responsible for burying him.

It is clear from your letter that you feel aggrieved, but I am sure that you would agree, after some quiet contemplation, that you, your husband, or anyone else who decides to take out a life insurance policy has the right to decide who would be their named beneficiary of the proceeds of their policy.

It is understandable that you are upset, but you must understand that his insurance policy is a contract between him and the insurance company and the obligations of both sides are contained in the policy, in what the law refers to as the “terms of the insurance contract”. Your husband’s obligations are to name his beneficiary who is to receive the proceeds of his insurance following his demise, or that it should go to his estate, and that throughout his lifetime, once he continues paying his monthly premiums as stated in the policy of insurance until he dies, his will is to be honoured.

The insurance company is obligated to abide by the terms of their policy for your husband, and to hold his premiums and add any interests/earnings accruing to the policy throughout the years it exists until his death, and then to pay out its total sum to his named beneficiary. If the company does not act according to the contract with your husband, the company would be in breach of their legal obligation and be liable to your husband’s grandchild, the beneficiary, for the complete and total sum of the policy. The company would only pay to the named beneficiary.

In other words, there is no way that you can have the insurance company pay out the proceeds of your husband’s insurance policy to you when you are not the named beneficiary in it. If he had named his estate as the beneficiary, then you as his wife could apply to act as the administrator, and claim and take in all property, assets, proceeds and income due to his estate and administer the whole estate for yourself and his other beneficiaries according to law pursuant to the Intestates Estates and Property Charges Act, and distribute the estate to the beneficiaries as the Act states.

The fact that you are his wife would not sway the insurance company’s position at all, and the Property (Rights of Charges) Act cannot assist you in this regard. Insurance companies are very careful about abiding by their contracts and ensuring payments out to named beneficiaries.

So I am sorry, but you cannot obtain the proceeds of your husband’s insurance policy when he has a clearly named beneficiary. It does not matter that the person is a minor child.

Please just accept the position, and one hopes that your husband contributed or is still contributing to the National Insurance Scheme, and has health insurance or is registered in the Government clinics, so that you can ensure that if or when the necessity arises, you can call on these institutions for what are your husbands’ entitlements for medical treatments and for his funeral dues following his death.

I trust that you will not be too overburdened. All the very best.

Margarette May Macaulay is an attorney-at-law, Supreme Court mediator, notary public, and women’s and children’s rights advocate. Send questions via e-mail to allwoman@jamaicaobserver.com; or write to All Woman, 40-42 1/2 Beechwood Avenue, Kingston 5. All responses are published. Mrs Macaulay cannot provide personal responses.