Runaround trying to collect on deceased’s life insurance policy.

A few months ago, my mother passed away and my brother and I found a life insurance policy among her papers. Her husband (deceased — and his death certificate and hers were supplied to them) was named as the beneficiary and the children (us) as secondary beneficiaries (it should be noted that we were referred to as 'my children' and not by our names). Anyway, I am executor of the will (with all the necessary documentation as proof) and as such filled out the necessary paperwork to make a claim. The insurance company sent us reply letters a month later asking for notarized proof of address. We wrote letters, had them notarized, and sent them along with a current copy of a utility bill and heard nothing back from them for another month. As a result, I called them again. This time they're telling me they need a notarized letter swearing to the fact that we (the two children) are the only children. My first question of course was were you going to ever contact us about this? and my second question was why didn't you ask for that when you sent the last correspondence? My question is, what can I do to get them to stop dragging their feet? My understand was that since the children aren't specifically named in the life insurance policy, the payout should just be released to the estate, but I guess that was wrong. Anyway, any advice on what else I can do to speed this process along, and what organization I need to contact to get them to stop dragging their feet. Any advice is appreciated — even if it's just 'this is standard practice' — though if that's the case the BBB should be doing something about it. I lost my mother, I shouldn't have to be dealing with this garbage as well.

submitted by /u/Familiar-Dance-1619
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