Many issues can erupt when death happens.  If a lot of time passes after death and no one formally notifies certain companies, fraudulent activity has been known to occur and this can impact your family.

It is our mission to reduce this window of time, while providing assurance to individuals who have active insurance policies, stored in a locker, that their family and loved ones will not be overlooked by an insurance company.

Every day, that someone passes away who may have had a policy, but over time the paperwork got lost and the insurance company who wrote the policy also lost track of the policy holder because the policy was paid in full. No one in the family knew of the policies existence and didn’t submit a claim and the insurer didn’t know the policy holder died.  This is a common problem happening today. Innovative technology can now make this type of issue a thing of the past with no family being left without death benefits from a policy that was in force at the time of death.

The Ivylocker solution protects the legacy of its members by issuing notifications to those companies pre-selected by the member before so that when the loss of life occurs, Ivylocker executes the wishes of the member.

What began as an idea in 1997, led to a submission for patenting the idea subsequently to a journey creating IvyLocker, a product of IvyNet, Inc., Based in Chicago, Illinois. IvyNet, Inc., a custom software design firm is the leader providing automated mortality notifications, complete turnkey processing of pre-planning for life events: secure encrypted data storage lockers, insurance, financial, legal and a directed last wish of video, text or an audio message.

Why IvyLocker is needed:

The United States of America and much of the developed world is faced with a changing population demographic, which has brought multiple issues to the fore front.   Scattered financial information in millions of homes prevents families from accessing important information quickly once a loved one has died.

Changes in family structures are shifting from the traditional nuclear family of mother, father and children to single parent, and other non-traditional family structures.  These new family structures have increased the need to help families stay informed about their personal and financial information.

There was time when it was not as common for kids to grow up and move away from their home town.  Marriages lasted over time, where assets accumulated stayed apart of the hub of the family, i.e. homes, business, and other assets where passed on to family members by identifying the intended party for inheritance in the last will and testament.  Currently, more than 55% of Americans don’t have a will.

And because of economic hard times there is a portion of our society who has not taken the time to have a will written up, feelings that they can’t afford to spend the money, or they don’t own anything of value to warrant having a will.

While IvyLocker cannot replace a will, or the purpose of having a will; it can provide some assistance to families who are concerned about receiving their death benefits payable to them by insurance providers and many other benefits in supporting the family during the time of loss.

The consumer’s problem:

Individuals and families who accept their role and responsibility in electing to have insurance protection for their families, must also accept the need to keep track of those documents and to let their next of kin or trusted friend know of the whereabouts of those documents.

• Many people, simply stated may not realize that the issuance of a life insurance policy is a contractual agreement to pay death benefits in exchange for premiums paid (a small sum of money) paid over time to the insurance company.

•  Several Life Insurance companies have been found guilty of not paying death benefits to beneficiaries; admitting in court, they lost track of their policy holders.

•  When individuals don’t take the time to organize their affairs, set up beneficiaries and identify those who will managed their affairs, they not only hurt their family, but everything may default to the states they may potentially give everything to the state unclaimed assets.

• IvyLocker is the solution to this problem by providing a place where the consumer may enter pieces of information such as insurance company and policy number and store a copy of the document in an insurance locker, available within IvyLocker.

The business problem:

There are certain businesses that provide services to the general public who have a business operational need to know if or when a person dies. Historically, this type of business is reliant upon a family member contacting them.  This also means that should the family not know to contact those businesses; it will not happen and the business will carry open accounts in some cases indefinitely. Typically they are:

• Life Insurance companies

• Pension Providers

• Banks, mortgage companies, loan companies and other financial providers

• Credit Bureaus

• Credit Card Providers: MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Discover

Fraud and theft take center stage, as does scamming families of the deceased by reading obituaries to find who has died.  Identity thieves prey on families immediately after death, because that’s when they are most vulnerable.  Some of the most common tactics are getting hold of the social security numbers, opening new credit accounts, making major credit card purchases. Should the family quickly identify those fraudulent transactions and notify the credit card company.  The credit card provider may be able to recoup the loss incurred by the theft. This may have a negative impact to the merchant and the credit card provider.

We are now deep into the ‘green friendly’ age and millions of people have opted to receive statements electronically.  The statements are sent to the registered email on the account.  So If Dave passed away, a single adult, but no one knew his password to access his email account they may never know that Dave had a bank account with Chase.  As long as Dave’s account has a positive balance Chase has no reason to suspect that Dave may have passed or that the estate of Dave is entitled to funds sitting in his account.

If Dave was married, there is a greater likelihood that Dave’s spouse would know about the bank account. But not all married couples maintain joint banking accounts.

Business can be impacted in a negative way; the longer the time window remains open before notifying business when loss occurs, the more money the business may spend covering losses that originated in identity theft of the deceased, claims fraud processing, court and legal fees.

Every year assets from bank accounts, property, contents of lock boxes are turned over to the state government’s unclaimed assets department. This department is tasked in locating individuals who should receive this inheritance entitlement.  The value of this fund continues to grow because of lack of planning by the individual before death and state government’s inability to locate the next of kin.

IvyNet’s proprietary notification services offers process enablement services to assist companies in establishing expedited benefit processing by joining the Ivy Partner Network.  Benefits gained by participating companies:

Life Insurance companies may automate their claims processing for simplified deaths

Reduction in identity theft of the deceased with rapid processing in notifying accounts, faster time in closure of accounts

Licensed exclusive partner access for ease in validating deceased individuals

Data access for reporting, statistical analysis and modernization of mortality data tables

Compliance reporting to government bodies, proof of death benefit to policies.

If you’re interested in exploring options of being a member in the Ivy Partner Network, contact us at Inquiry@ivylocker.com

 Yvonne Fitzpatrick – Founder, Inventor & CEO

Jason Thayer- VP Marketing & Sales

Craig Neal^® – Strategy & Development

Jerald Knox – Chief Financial Officer

Mike Gregory, Jr – Marketing & Sales