There’s information we need to have under the Unclaimed Life Assurance Policies Act 2003 (the Act), to identify unclaimed policies if:
- There’s a fixed term policy that matured at least five years ago and we’ve had no written communication from the policyholder since then.
- There’s a policy without a fixed term and we’ve had no written communication from the policyholder for at least 15 years.
- There’s a personal pension and we’ve had no communication with the policyholder for at least five years since the policy’s latest retirement date.
The Act doesn’t apply to policies that form part of the assets of:
- Occupational pension schemes.
- Other retirement benefit schemes or trusts.
- Group permanent health insurance or disability benefit schemes.
- Sponsored superannuation schemes.
We have to transfer the cash in value of policies covered under the Act to the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) on 31 March each year. NTMA then manages the funds on behalf of the State.
We need to take reasonable steps to contact policyholders to find out what they want to do with the policy. They may want to be given the money or continue the policy where that’s allowed. Once we have the policyholder’s written instructions, we’ll take the policy off the unclaimed list and recover the value from NTMA.
We don’t have to write to unclaimed policy holders if:
- The value of the policy is less than 500 euros.
- The policyholder has asked us not to contact them.
- We’ve tried to get in touch and been unable to make contact.
Policyholders’ rights are unaffected by the transfer of money to the NTMA. If you’d like to reclaim a policy you can find out how on the Insurance Ireland website.
Contact us
If you have any queries or concerns about a policy you think may be seen as unclaimed, or if you have a valid legal interest in an unclaimed policy, please contact us.
Anyone making fraudulent claims may be guilty of an offence.
