Will my Provider Notify Me of Policy Changes in Writing?

When you purchase a life insurance policy, you will receive an actual binder or folder which contains the exact terms of your policy in writing. The formatting of the printed policy may vary from one insurance company to another. But, essentially whatever you receive from the company in writing will be exactly what your policy includes and excludes. As long as your policy remains in effect by way of your continued premium payments, the terms do not change.

When to Expect Written Changes

If your policy is purchased to include one beneficiary, but you want to change it to another beneficiary in the future due to a divorce situation or something else, the change would have to originate from you. Typically, you would obtain a form from your insurance company which you would fill out for the sole purpose of designating a different beneficiary to your life insurance policy. You would have to submit the form to the insurer in order for the change to take effect.

In this instance, your insurer would confirm the change with you in writing. You may be provided with a one page amendment which indicates the new beneficiary's name. This amendment is something of a legal document in that it will contain wording to the effect that it becomes part of your life insurance policy on a specific date.

But, more importantly it will also indicate that it is not changing any other part of the policy terms as they were set forth originally. In this example, the only part of the policy that changed was the named beneficiary. Everything else would need to remain the same for your life insurance policy as you did not formally request in writing that anything else be changed except for the named beneficiary.

Normally, because of a change like this it does not require you to receive an entirely new policy binder. For one thing, it would not be practical for the insurer to draw the policy up again. If, for some reason, a clerical error occurred even if the policy was only being copied by a computer printer, it could cause a legal change to the policy terms.

In order to avoid this from happening, it is safer for a life insurance company to simply confirm the policy change in writing by way of a one-page document. It makes the change easier for the company to issue, and it also makes the policy stand less of a chance of accidentally being altered in other ways. If the changes to the policy terms are general and originate from the life insurance company, they may issue a similar type of amendment to policy holders.

For instance, if some wording to the company's name changes, they may issue a blanket amendment to be added and made a part of all policies. It could say, for instance, that company A is now known as company A and B. Something like this would also not alter legally the existing terms of your life insurance policy. However, as a formality the insurer would do this to keep your policy up to date.

Getting Changes in Writing

A life insurance company has an obligation to notify you of changes to the policy in writing. From a legal standpoint, a change to a policy does not happen unless it is in writing. Also, there must be documentation that, in the case where a policy change originated from the policy holder, it was requested by that individual in writing. This would prove that the change was intentionally made by the policy holder and not made accidentally, or intentionally, by the insurer.

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