Commonwealth Consolidated Acts Commonwealth Consolidated Acts(1) This section applies:
(a) if the owner of a life policy dies before the person whose life is insured by the policy; and
(b) either:
(i) the adjusted surrender value of the policy is less than the prescribed amount; or
(ii) the policy is one of 2 or more policies owned by the deceased owner and issued by the same company the total adjusted surrender values of which are less than the prescribed amount.
(2) If a person (the applicant ) satisfies the company that issued the policy:
(a) that he or she is entitled, under the will or on the intestacy of the deceased owner, to the benefit of the policy; or
(b) that he or she is entitled to obtain probate of the will or to take out letters of administration of the estate of the deceased owner;
the company may endorse on the policy a declaration that the applicant has so satisfied the company and is the owner of the policy.
(3) The company may endorse the policy without requiring the production of any probate or letters of administration.
(4) If subsection (2) applies, the applicant becomes, subject to subsection (5), the owner of the policy.
(5) Subsection (4) does not:
(a) confer on the applicant any beneficial interest in the policy that he or she would not otherwise have had; or
(b) affect any right or interest of a person other than the applicant in relation to the policy.
(6) For the purposes of this section, the adjusted surrender value of a policy is the surrender value of the policy as at the day on which the owner died, less any debt due to the company under, or secured by, the policy.
(7) In this section, prescribed amount means $50,000 or such other amount as is prescribed by the regulations for the purposes of this section.