Finding a life insurance policy after a death

A family clearing out a house finds an old premium notice, or a line in a will, and nobody knows which insurer held the contract or whether it is still in force. There is one national route to ask the question, it is run by OLHI, and it is open only between three months and two years after the death. Miss that window and it closes. Separately, money that is never claimed in Quebec ends up with Revenu Quebec, where it can still be recovered, at a published price.

There is one national route, and it has a narrow window

OLHI, the OmbudService for Life and Health Insurance, operates a search service for a policy held by a person who has died. A requester submits the details of the deceased, and OLHI places those details on a consolidated search list that is shared monthly with participating insurers. That is the mechanism. It is a list that circulates, not a database that is queried.

The eligibility condition that catches most families is the time window. OLHI states that the death must have occurred more than three months ago but less than two years ago. That is a window with a floor and a ceiling. A death last month is too recent. A death three years ago is too late. Families who spend the first two years settling everything else, and only then start wondering about an insurance contract, arrive after the door has shut.

OLHI states that its consumer services are free. The page for this particular search does not state a cost for the service itself, which is a silence worth noting rather than filling in. Where an official source does not publish a figure, this article does not supply one.

What counts as specific information

OLHI does not accept a hunch. The requester must have specific information suggesting that a policy exists. OLHI gives one example of what may be enough: a reference in a will, or in another document. It also gives examples of what is not enough: a general assumption that the person probably had coverage, and a verbal confirmation that someone remembers hearing about a policy.

In practice that means the search is driven by paper. A premium notice. A statement in a safety deposit box. A clause in a will that mentions an insurance contract. A letter from an insurer about a policy anniversary. A line in a bank statement showing a recurring payment to an insurance company. Those are the sorts of things that make a request eligible, and they are the sorts of things that get thrown out when a house is cleared.

Before discarding anything, it is worth separating financial paper from everything else and reading it. The window is short, and the standard of proof is specific. Both of those argue for looking through the documents early rather than later.

What the search does not do

The limits of the route matter as much as the route. Only Canadian issued life insurance policies are eligible. A contract issued in another country is outside the service, and a family that believes one existed has to pursue it through that country's own channels.

Only participating companies are searched. OLHI says most Canadian life and health insurance companies participate, but does not publish the number of participants, so a family cannot know from the page whether a specific insurer is on the list. OLHI also states that it does not conduct the searches itself, and that it gives no confirmation that a search was completed. Silence after a request therefore proves nothing. It does not mean a policy was not found, and it does not mean a search happened.

Group policies may not be found. OLHI recommends contacting the former employer directly. That is practical advice worth acting on in parallel rather than afterwards, because a group life benefit through a current or former employer is one of the commonest forms of coverage that families forget exists. Our article on group life coverage explains how that benefit works and why it is easy to lose sight of.

Money nobody claims goes to Revenu Quebec

A policy can be found and still go unclaimed, and a policy can go unfound for years. Quebec has a mechanism for the money either way. Revenu Quebec provisionally administers unclaimed financial assets, and its published list of what that includes expressly covers amounts payable under a life insurance contract, and amounts payable under a pension or retirement contract or plan. It also covers the interest and the other investment income that those assets produce while they sit, which Revenu Quebec lists alongside the amounts themselves.

So the money does not vanish. It changes hands. The holder remits it, and the state administers it until someone comes forward with a claim. Revenu Quebec publishes a claim process for a financial asset, and a family that discovers a contract late should look there before assuming the money is gone.

One figure is missing from the page that lists the types of unclaimed assets: it does not state the holding period after which a holder must remit an unclaimed amount. That matters, because it determines how long an insurer holds the money before the state does, and therefore where a family should be asking. The page is silent on it, and this article leaves it that way.

The deadlines to claim, and what recovery costs

Revenu Quebec publishes two different claiming deadlines, split by amount. Property worth less than five hundred dollars must be claimed within ten years after the date it was remitted to the Minister of Finance. Property worth five hundred dollars or more has no claiming deadline at all. That is an unusual structure, and the asymmetry is worth remembering: a small amount can expire, a large one does not.

Unclaimed successions follow a separate rule. Heirs have ten years from the date the succession was opened. Anything touching a succession, an heir's standing, or a liquidator's duties is legal work, and the place for those questions is a notary.

The fees are published, and they are real. For unclaimed financial assets, in force from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027, administration and delivery costs ten per cent of the value, with a minimum of sixty dollars and a maximum of one thousand two hundred and eleven dollars. Liquidation costs ten per cent of the net proceeds, to a maximum of one thousand two hundred and eleven dollars. A safety deposit box carries an administration fee of four hundred and four dollars, and liquidation of the box contents costs fifteen per cent of the proceeds to a maximum of six thousand and fifty seven dollars.

Unclaimed succession fees are heavier. Opening the file costs one thousand six hundred and thirty six dollars. Administration costs five thousand four hundred and fifty dollars. Liquidating moveable or immovable property costs fifteen per cent, to a maximum of six thousand and fifty seven dollars. Account rendering and delivery costs one thousand two hundred and eleven dollars. All of these fees are subject to GST and QST, and Revenu Quebec indexes them annually, so the 2026 to 2027 schedule is not the schedule that will apply in a later year. This practice does not prepare tax returns and does not give tax advice; questions about the tax treatment of any amount recovered belong with an accountant.

The cheapest moment to solve this is before anybody dies

Everything above describes a search that may fail. The window may be missed. The insurer may not participate. The policy may be a group contract the route does not reach. No confirmation is given either way. That is a weak position to put a grieving family in, and it is entirely avoidable.

What avoids it is a written note. Not a plan, not a binder, not a system: a single page that lists which contracts exist, which insurer holds each one, the policy number if it is known, and who the named beneficiary is. Kept somewhere the family will actually look, and told to at least one person who will outlive the owner. Updated when a contract changes.

That note does two things the national search cannot. It works immediately, with no waiting period and no two year ceiling. And it reaches group coverage, individual coverage, and pension entitlements alike, because it is written by the only person who knows all three. A beneficiary designation that nobody can find is, in practical terms, a beneficiary designation that does not work, which is why keeping designations current is part of the same piece of housekeeping.

The harsh version is simple. The state has built a route for families who do not know what existed, and that route is narrow, unconfirmed, and time limited. The alternative costs an hour and a sheet of paper.

Frequently Asked Questions

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If a death has just happened, the ordered list of first steps is set out in what to do when someone dies, and locating the contracts belongs early in that list rather than late. Because this search only works when a designation can actually be traced to a named person, how a beneficiary is named and what a designation does are the two pages that explain what the search is looking for. In Quebec the person who has to run the hunt is usually the liquidator, whose role and limits are described in the liquidator in Quebec, and a de facto spouse who is not sure of her standing should start with what a de facto spouse is entitled to before assuming anything.