How do you claim on a life insurance policy after someone dies?

It depends on whether the policy was written in trust. A trust policy pays the named beneficiaries directly — the trustees can usually claim as soon as they have a death certificate, with no probate step at all. A policy that was not written in trust pays into the deceased's estate, and the insurer will normally want to see the grant of probate (or letters of administration) before releasing the money.

Some insurers will release smaller sums without a grant, against a signed indemnity — but there is no single UK-wide threshold. Each insurer sets its own limit, so ask the specific insurer what theirs is rather than assuming one figure applies everywhere.

Most claims are paid without any complication. Insurers paid out on 97.9% of individual protection claims in 2025, at an average of £19,300 per claim (ABI, blended across life insurance, income protection and critical illness — not a life-insurance-only figure) — and that rate has held at or above that level for over a decade.

Insurers do look more closely at deaths that happen soon after a policy started, checking that the answers given at application were accurate — non-disclosure at application, not the cause of death, is the most common reason a claim is challenged. Most personal policies also carry a suicide exclusion for roughly the first 12 months — L&G's own claims guidance, for example, states cover doesn't apply if death is the result of suicide within the first year of the policy. Check the specific policy's terms rather than assuming every insurer's wording is identical.

Start with bank and card statements for a regular payment to an insurer, and any paperwork already gathered — the Death Folder Checklist and the Digital Life Audit tool both walk through where policies tend to turn up.

If you know the insurer's name, contact them directly — most can trace a policy from the deceased's full name, date of birth and last address. If you don't know the name, the ABI's own guidance points people to Gretel, a free service that searches for lost life insurance (and lost pensions and dormant accounts) using the same details.

No. Death-in-service benefit is paid from an employer's scheme, usually sits in a discretionary trust the employer set up, and is claimed through the employer or the scheme's trustees — not an insurance company you contact yourself. See Death in service benefit for how that payout and its own trustee-discretion rules work.

This page is specifically about a personal life insurance policy the deceased took out and paid for themselves.

No. Life insurance in trust covers the planning decision — writing a new or existing policy into trust now, for the future. This page covers the opposite moment: actually claiming on a policy that already exists, after someone has died.

If the policy in question turns out to already be written in trust, the guidance in the "In trust, or not?" section above on the trust route is the relevant path to follow.

There is no single UK-wide figure insurers publish for this. A trust policy is generally the faster route — L&G's own guidance says a trust claim "avoids" the legal processes that come with probate, so payment "often" follows quicker.

A policy paying into the estate moves at the pace of obtaining the grant of probate first — a separate legal process with its own timeline (see How long does probate take). Once the insurer has the claim form, the death certificate, and the grant if one is required, most say they aim to process it as quickly as they can — but none commit to a fixed number of days.