What are you trying to do? Did your grandfather die 25 years ago? Is the policy on your life, or on your grandfather's? What is it that the insurance company sent? Where did most of the benefit go? Without the information covered by these questions, no one can help you.

you can only put some much in the q because of character limits, and that was as precise as i could make the q...i commented with part of this, and decided to add to it this way to give more details... it's a policy to be paid out to me upon his death, he was raising me at the time and paid on the policy for 20 years until his death...he died 25 years ago, and i am entitled to money... i obviously do not have a copy of the policy (and, as of now, i am not aware of anyone who has it or knows where it is...my dad said once, long before grandpa died, that he was pretty sure that grandpa had paid into a policy for me...but no one in the family evidently, had details about it after grandpa passed away, and no one has ever run across any concrete info until now...thus the initial problem...as for our family, why no one ran across it remains a mystery, although a number of keepsakes were "missing" by the time my grandmother died, so who knows where it is or who and where it could have gone to)... but, irregardless of that, i am just now finding out about it from the insurance company, and not directly...the mail was addressed to my grandfather, and my uncle (who now owns the house) opened it... for some reason, they don't seem to be in too big of a hurry to get me the forms to fill out...most of the benefit that had built up for 20 years has been taken out by the insurance company, little-by-little, over the past 25 years... i called 2 weeks ago (on the 8th) with the initial info, immediately after getting off the phone with my uncle, and the insurance person i spoke with said what is left would have been gone in a couple of more years (obviously, since my grandfather is deceased, no one has made a payment for a quarter century)... and was told by a second person (a week later) that forms were sent on 9th...i still have not received, nor have i heard, anything...i emailed them today, and was a bit more forceful this time...i also emailed two acquaintances, one an attorney, and one in insurance, but this is not the attorney's field, so i don't know how much assistance or information i will receive from the two of them... i have checked online and never seen my name as one listed that a business or govt agency owes money to...and it's not like i'm hard to find...except for three years out of state, and the past year (when i moved 30 miles away), i have always lived within 10 miles of where my grandpa raised me, 41 out of the last 45 years...my dad, who had custody in a divorce that was finalized while he was stationed 2500 miles away, raised me when he finished his stint with the army...he has never lived more than 5 miles from my grandpa's house since returning from the service...my grandpa's house, which is the address this recent correspondence was sent to, has never left the family...until a divorce, my name, address and phone number were in the local phone directory (have used cellular since then), and my father's name is listed...we have the same name, with the exception of "junior" on mine...it's not hard to find me... if the only correspondence for the entire 25 years is addressed to my grandfather, they never tried to find me, and for some reason, haven't even tried to contact him again until recently (who knows how long ago they stopped)...what gives an insurance company the right to say, after a period of time, that they are no longer obligated to contact the person who paid into the policy, and never, not even after a reasonable amount of time had elapsed, are obligated to locate and contact the beneficiary...i would think that sometime in a quarter of a century, someone in that agency would be smart enough to say, "hey, maybe he's not writing back or making payments anymore because he's dead"...it is a death benefit policy, after all... i don't know, and can't find specific laws dealing with life insurance benefits and this particular problem in the ohio revised code...the insurance company, my grandfather's residence, as well as mine, are all within the state...i don't know what my rights are...or if it's even worth my time to try and find one, because if they are allowed to simply keep benefits without trying to find the beneficiary, for a period of 25 years, then i obviously just got it shoved in about as far as the system can shove it into a person...

Most "whole life" policies accumulate "cash value" over time. This fund can be tapped by the owner for loans. Most such policies provide for that fund to be tapped by the company to cover any premium not paid when due. Apparently the company was unaware your grandfather had died, so it has been drawing the premium amount out each month, or whenever the premium was due. Since any loan (which the premium withdrawal is) is deducted from the death benefit, there could well be very little remaining after 25 years. Most insurance companies send notices when premiums are not paid, and they also send notices when they have withdrawn premium payments from the cash value, so there probably were numerous mailings from the company to your grandfather. With no response from your grandfather, the company just continued with its periodic withdrawals when due. The current delay in its sending you the claim forms is probably due to the consternation in the office as to how to handle this unusual situation. You may need to get an attorney to help you with this, but first you should contact your state's department of insurance. You may have to file a formal complaint with the state, but they will then contact the company to get an explanation. The state controls the company's ability to do business in your state, so involving the state may be the key to resolving your problem.