3. There can also be a possibility of the company that issued your life insurance policy can change its name, merged with another company or sold your policy to another insurance company.

You should have notifications of these changes at the time it happened. For this reason, you need to make sure that you have given your current mailing address on your policy. However, if you did not receive any updated policy, you will need to locate the life insurer that services and pays claims on your insurance policy.

4. One of the crucial decisions you have to make regarding life insurance is to whom to leave your benefits. That’s why it’s quite essential to review your beneficiaries every few years.

There are two types of Primary and Contingent beneficiaries for your life insurance policy for. The Primary beneficiaries receive a fraction or the whole policy benefit if they outlive you and the Contingent beneficiaries (also known as secondary beneficiaries) receive proceeds if a primary beneficiary dies earlier than you. If you name more than one beneficiary in each category, you should include the percentages of the death benefit proceeds that you would like each individual to receive, or stipulate “equal shares” to each.