Search for beneficiaries of escheated policies and dormant bank accounts.
Law no. 2005-1564 of December 15, 2005 introduced the obligation to search for the beneficiary’s address. Article L. 132-8 of the French Insurance Code does not specify the nature of the due diligence to be carried out by the insurer, and article L. 132-9-3 of the same code art. L. 132-9-3 authorizes, but does not prohibit, other methods of finding the address of beneficiaries of escheated policies.
The so-called “Eckert” law n°2014-617 of June 13, 2014 aims to make the search for beneficiaries of inactive bank accounts and escheated life insurance policies more energetic.
It also obliges banks to search for deceased account holders, notably through an annual consultation of the National Individual Identification Register (RNIPP). These institutions will also be required to publish the number of inactive accounts and the amount outstanding on an annual basis.
It is against this backdrop that mechanisms have been put in place within these various establishments to track down these beneficiaries.
With this in mind, the expertise, guarantees, experience, rigor and professionalism of Successor Genealogists make them key players in the search for beneficiaries and the confirmation of their rights to dormant assets through the establishment of certified devolutions of estates.
In effect, they become the preferred partners of life insurance companies and banks, enabling them to meet the twofold objective set by law:
- strengthen the protection of bank account holders and their beneficiaries, as well as life insurance policyholders and beneficiaries.
- ensure correct and consistent application of the thirty-year statute of limitations, which deems these sums to have been acquired by the State after thirty years, by removing them from the balance sheets of banks and insurance companies, while giving the beneficiaries of these sums time to recover them.
- cover them against liability claims in the event of non-performance of the obligation incumbent on him to inform the beneficiary of life insurance policies of the existence of life insurance policies taken out for his benefit (cf: Paris Court of Appeal ruling of 10/28/2014).
SEGUR is the largest group of genealogists and detectives serving banks and insurance companies to identify and locate beneficiaries of life insurance policies and heirs to escheated assets.
The Chambre des Généalogistes Professionnels (CGP), Europe’s leading association of genealogists (40 member studies in France, Europe and abroad, and a network of dozens of correspondents worldwide), offers its expertise to all life insurance and banking professionals, guaranteeing effective research in line with its commitments, while respecting the strictest professional secrecy.