The families you serve may not know of existing life insurance policies — Sunset can help

July 15, 2026/Business, Products/

There are only about 3 million deaths in the United States each year. Yet, according to this recent article from Insurance Newsnet, families may be missing out out on a million policies per year.

The article points out that consumer advocates are asking for a strengthening of death claim searches and at the same time warn that the federal “Death Master File (DMF)” may miss many policies. Here’s what Richard M. Weber, a veteran of the life insurance industry, said at a recent hearing of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) Life Insurance and Annuities Committee:

“The DMF once captured as much as 95% of deaths. That changed after the Social Security Administration removed more than 4 million death records from the public database in 2011 amid privacy and identity theft concerns. Subsequent restrictions enacted under the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 further limited access to death records.

As a result insurers may not learn of many deaths unless family members file claims or use the NAIC’s Life Insurance Policy Locator (LIPL) tool.

When the beneficiary doesn’t know the recently deceased family member had purchased and paid for a life insurance policy, or was covered under group benefits, the beneficiary doesn’t know the LIPL exists or how to access it.”

The article goes on to point out that inconsistent state adoption of unclaimed-life-insurance requirements has created uneven consumer protections.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take: I wasn’t aware of this problem. However, one of the nicest guys in the greater Death Care universe and his business partner have been working on a solution that I feel should always be presented to families.

For years, attorney Stephen Walter and his business partner Kaela Worthen have been putting a program together to help families find and retrieve assets that a deceased relative may have that the family did not know about. The service is called Sunset and is up and running and continually refining the process that makes it possible.

On this “About Us” page from the Sunset website you learn about how Sunset went from idea to a practical solution for families. Back in the infancy of Sunset, at the time of his father-in-law’s death, I remember talking with Stephen about his goals for Sunset. Quite frankly, part of those goals were to help families uncover unknown assets and being able to do it free of charge for them.

That seemed like a big goal to me. . . but it appears that Sunset is well on their way to getting that done. Prior to writing this article I emailed Stephen with this question, “Does Sunset find life insurance policies?”. I received a quick and concise answer that simply said, “Yes we do”.

Sunset is free for families who have lost a loved one. If you would like to learn more about that click here.

Part of our job as a funeral director is to help the families in any way possible. Simply passing on your knowledge of Sunset could very well be a major help to families. And, when you think that the assets that they may discover thru Sunset could possibly help with Death Care expenses, you wonder what reason for not passing on the information could there be.

To learn more about Sunset feel free to take a look at their website. Here is the home page.

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