Family ordinarily resident in the UK comprising Mum and 3 minor children all nominated as beneficiaries, is expecting life insurance payout from a USA based insurer. Mum is surviving parent and needs money for children’s upkeep but insurer cannot payout to children under the age of 18. For mum to receive the money, she needs to have Court Appointed Guardianship of each minor child’s estate.
Insurer has specified that If a minor is the beneficiary - there is need for a court order for appointment of the legal guardian of the property and/or estate of any minor child. (Please note: custody or guardian of a person does not qualify as guardianship).
How does a mum who already had parental responsibility under s3 of Children’s Act go about obtaining this order? Could not see anything in Family Court forms.
This is an interesting question, which raises a few queries at my end:
Is the life insurance payable at discretion of Trustees, or to the Estate of pre-deceased parent?
If the latter, a Grant of Representation re-sealed through Medallion Guarantee should be sufficient to pay to the named PR. If the former, best to ask the life insurer to advise what is acceptable to them, as they’re the ones making the discretionary payment.
If the children are minors, then under the prevailing law in England & Wales they have automatic parental responsibility - certainly if the sole surviving parent. See Parental rights and responsibilities: What is parental responsibility? - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) - apologies, I’m not a family law practitioner so can’t point you at the relevant statute law but sure it’s fairly straightforward to find on legislation.gov.uk. Therefore, was the sole surviving parent living with the deceased parent and the children at the point that the bereavement took place? If so, stating that this parental responsibility automatically provides for the parent to look after the child’s property seems quite persuasive?
You can apply under s. 1 of the Children Act 1989 for permission to receive and deal with the property. That may be sufficient for the insurer’s purposes, although you will have to check with them.
You haven’t said what the local law is, which will vary by US state. In California, for example, a guardianship is established by petitioning the court, and the guardianship may cover the person of the minor, the property of the minor or some limited property. So it will be worth taking some local advice, to see if the relevant state court would recognise an order of the English court. If not, then local proceedings may be necessary. Again, using California as an example, the superior court has jurisdiction over non-resident minors, so that a petition could be heard there.