“Resolving insurance unclaimed property is a labor-intensive process, and CSC’s industry specialists have the process discipline and experience to meticulously search, validate and document these requirements, as well as adjudicate the resulting claims,” said Michael Risley, president of CSC’s life insurance and annuity division. “CSC provides a scalable solution for both the initial massive cleanup assessments and the future periodic sweeps needed to maintain state compliance and avoid costly fines.”
CSC’s unclaimed property investigative service accelerates payments of death benefits to hard-to-locate beneficiaries by undertaking a massive cleanup of policies with the potential for unclaimed death benefits. It also validates the insured’s identity and policy coverage, adjudicates the claim, searches for beneficiaries and claim payment recommendations, and provides reports on all search details. It also includes proactive periodic searches against the Social Security Death Master File (DMF), searches to identify deceased insureds, locate beneficiaries and distribute funds, or escheat unclaimed benefits to the States.
“The laws and responsibilities around unclaimed property are evolving, and carriers should expect to see more inquiries during audit and market conduct exams,” said Greg Wittenbrook, principal analyst at Novarica. “Because of the magnitude of unclaimed assets involved—more than $30 billion nationwide—regulatory requirements for insurers will likely increase. Identifying beneficiaries and tracing monies owed will be difficult because of data discrepancies, particularly for insurers that have separate systems—in some cases, multiple systems—for life and annuities.”
According to CSC, the unclaimed property investigative service offers the required skills when and where they are needed, enhancing service and reducing costs associated with training temporary staff. CSC’s team of claim examiners can perform the entire cycle of a proof of existence search, claim adjudication, or portions of the claim depending on the insurer’s needs, priced on a per-transaction basis.
