Money - Family. Will: Why is it essential to mention life insurance?

A favorite investment of the French (29.4 billion euros collected in 2024, according to France Assureurs), life insurance is as much an investment vehicle as a way to prepare for retirement or plan for its transfer.

For its part, the will is a valuable tool for organizing one's estate.

The latter can even be used to designate the beneficiary(ies) of the life insurance contract. In this case, the clause of the contract remains empty or rather it is replaced by a statement such as "according to the provisions of the will drawn up on...".

This makes it possible, in particular, to avoid the disclosure of the beneficiary during their lifetime. It also, and above all, eliminates any risk of forgetting about this contract.

Every year, thousands of life insurance policies become unclaimed. By naming the beneficiary of the policy in the will, the existence of the policy becomes apparent as soon as the will is opened.

Especially since the latter is recorded in the central file of last wills and testaments (FCDDV) and therefore accessible to all notaries.

In doing so, you must be careful to avoid two mistakes. The first would be not being specific enough about the beneficiary of the life insurance, and specifically of the life insurance.

In fact, the will is there to establish the future of the various assets of the estate (real estate, furniture, shares, savings accounts, etc.).

For its part, life insurance benefits from a special civil and tax regime that "takes it out" of the estate. Thus, it will be essential to avoid any confusion between, on the one hand, the heirs and legatees mentioned in the will and, on the other hand, the beneficiary(ies) of the life insurance.

Another mistake to avoid: using the phrase "I bequeath to..." regarding life insurance. Indeed, from a legal perspective, bequest is a concept that applies exclusively to inheritance.

However, life insurance cannot be included in an estate. The wording could therefore confuse the content of the will.

It will therefore be preferable to indicate the following type of statement: “The beneficiary of my life insurance contract is:…” .

To avoid any dispute, the will may also state the specific characteristics of the contract as well as an order of beneficiaries if there are several.