The beneficiaries to a life insurance policy can be changed by email

An application by the executor to have a beneficiary designation under a life insurance policy varied pursuant to the Saskatchewan Insurance Act was allowed changing the beneficiaries from the children of the deceased into the estate of the deceased.

Re: Buckmeyer Estate, April 9, 2008, Saskatchewan Queen’s Bench, Ottenbreit J.

The deceased left a $300,000 insurance policy with Great West Life Insurance Company designating his two children as beneficiaries. The existing will was dated May 5, 2007 and was properly executed. The deceased died of a multi-drug overdose on August 31, 2007. The executor applied for an Order that an email from the deceased dated August 23, 2007 and an amendment to a will dated August 27, 2007 be declared fully effective as though they had been properly executed as the existing will or the alteration of the existing will. In the key portions of the email, the deceased wrote: “assuming that my estate will provide at least $100,000 for each of my children”, went on to discuss how the amounts should be distributed, and then later: “in the event my life insurance amount of $300,000 provides for my children as expected netting a minimum of $100,000 each then a (named) third party is to receive $25,000 from my estate.”

The judge accepted that a document may be sufficient to make dispositions of property without being valid as a testamentary document, then further noted that there was nothing in the life insurance contract which required a certain format to be followed to alter beneficiary. The judge enunciated the following principles:

1.         The Saskatchewan Insurance Act requires no special form to designate, alter or revoke a designation of beneficiary.

2.         Relatively informal documents can be effective declarations and designations of beneficiary.

3.         The test for identification of proceeds of policies for the purpose of a declaration is not a stringent one in the sense of requiring the policy name, number or amount.

4.         The court must look at whether the deceased has adequately identified the policies or funds in question as required by the Act.

5          The court must look for a clear intention to designate, alter or revoke in the declaration.

Using a plain and ordinary meaning of the relevant paragraphs of the email, the judge holds that the decedent intended to use part of the insurance funds to pay his debts. Therefore the existing will and the email constitute a declaration within the meaning of section 133(e) and section 152 of the Saskatchewan Insurance Act and revokes the insurance designation of the children as beneficiaries for the life insurance policy in favour of the estate.

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