Financial enquiries and life-insurance beneficiary tracing

Written by Guillaume Pouillier, CNAPS-licensed private detective, licence no. AGD 095-2024-03-06-20190240581 · Last updated: July 12, 2026

Since the French Eckert Act (law no. 2014-617), tracing life-insurance beneficiaries is no longer mere diligence: it is an obligation, backed by mandatory revaluation of the capital and, ultimately, its transfer to the Caisse des Dépôts. Insurers and mutuals hand us the files their own tools could not solve, beneficiaries gone abroad, clauses naming deceased persons, scattered families, together with their financial enquiries for recovery actions. This page explains our method, the legal framework and the deliverables you can expect.

Why has beneficiary tracing become a regulatory issue?

Because the Eckert Act requires insurers to identify deaths (AGIRA-RNIPP cross-checking), actively search for beneficiaries and pay out the capital, failing which the funds are transferred to the Caisse des Dépôts after ten years, and the shortfall can be sanctioned by the regulator.

Your compliance teams know the mechanism: mandatory consultation of the register of deceased persons, annual information, post-mortem revaluation, transfer to the Caisse des Dépôts (the Ciclade scheme) at the end of the period. What the regulation does not say is how to find a beneficiary who remarried twice and moved abroad, when the only clue is a first name on a clause drafted thirty years ago.

That is precisely an investigator’s job: reconstructing a life course from fragments, lawfully and discreetly, then delivering a certain identification with a current address.

How do we find an untraceable beneficiary?

By concentric circles: reconstruction of civil status and the family chain, exploitation of public registers and the press, open-source research, then field verification, neighbourhood, last known address, former employers, up to certain identification, in France or abroad.

Every file starts from what you hold: the clause, old correspondence, successive addresses. We then reconstruct the trajectory: marriages, divorces, name changes, migrations. Our people-tracing techniques apply, enriched with insurance specifics, a beneficiary may himself be deceased, in which case it is his own estate that must be identified.

Internationally, we work with the Prometheus Group’s correspondents and our WAD network, which gives access to accredited investigators in most countries.

What about ambiguous or outdated beneficiary clauses?

We reconstruct the complete chain: first-rank beneficiary deceased, representation, subsequent beneficiaries, legal heirs by default. The report documents every link with civil-status records, so that the payout is legally incontestable.

“My wife, failing whom my children born or to be born”: the standard clause ages badly once the family has recomposed. A divorced then remarried spouse, a predeceased child leaving children of his own, a partner designated by first name only, every configuration demands rigorous reconstruction, because paying the wrong beneficiary does not discharge the insurer.

Our deliverable is designed for your lawyers: a sourced genealogical table, copies of records, identification and current contact details of every entitled person, uncertainties flagged. Where needed, it dovetails with a full heir-tracing assignment.

Which financial enquiries do we conduct beyond beneficiaries?

The actual solvency of a liable third party before a subrogated recovery, the detection of organised insolvency, the location of seizable assets and the economic verification of a policyholder or claimant: asset investigations calibrated for decision-making.

A recovery action only makes sense if the liable party is solvent; a settlement negotiates differently when you know what the other side owns. Our solvency checks and asset investigations answer those questions with facts: apparent real estate, vehicles, actual economic activity, arrangements visible in open sources.

Within which legal framework do these searches operate?

CNAPS licence (art. L621-1 of the French Internal Security Code), a legitimate purpose documented in the mandate, minimal data and lawful sources: public registers, civil status, open sources, fieldwork. The GDPR governs every processing operation, and professional secrecy covers the entire file.

Beneficiary tracing rests on solid regulatory ground, it is the performance of the insurer’s own legal obligation. Recovery enquiries rest on legitimate interest: preserving a right in court. In both cases we document the legal basis in the mandate, limit collection to what is necessary and destroy raw data at the agreed term. No access to banking or tax files: the added value lies in lawful cross-checking, not transgression.

How does the assignment unfold in practice?

Four stages: secure transmission of the file and written scoping; documentary reconstruction (civil status, registers, press); targeted field verification; an identification report with records attached. A checkpoint closes every stage, and you can stop the assignment whenever a stage proves sufficient.

1. Scoping. You send us the clause, the policy history and the searches already attempted; the mandate fixes the legal basis, the scope and the budget.

2. Documentary reconstruction. Civil status, accessible registers, digitised press, historical directories: the trajectory takes shape on paper before anyone travels.

3. Targeted fieldwork. Last address, neighbourhood, town halls, former employers: a few well-placed verifications beat weeks of blind searching.

4. Report. Certain identification, current contact details, records attached, the chain documented link by link, ready for the payout or for your lawyers.

Typical timeline: two to six weeks for a national file, longer with an international leg, announced at scoping.

Which mistakes should be avoided in dormant-policy files?

Waiting until the Caisse des Dépôts transfer looms before outsourcing, paying out on an incomplete beneficiary chain, or classifying as “untraceable” a beneficiary nobody genuinely searched for: three practices that cost dearly, in legal risk as in reputation.

• Do not wait for the final year: the older the death, the more witnesses and traces fade, and the more the search costs
• Never pay on an incomplete chain: a non-discharging payout may have to be paid twice
• Document every attempt: in the event of an audit, it is the proof of diligence that counts
• Treat small capitals with the same rigour: regulatory risk is not proportionate to the amount

Two typical files, anonymised

A beneficiary designated in 1987, found abroad under her third married name thanks to marriage registers and digitised local press; a “penniless” liable third party whose actual business and apparent assets made a recovery action worthwhile after all.

The beneficiary with three names. A 1987 clause designates “Miss M., born 1954”. Successive marriages, a move abroad: the insurer’s internal tools fail. Civil-status reconstruction, crossed with digitised local press and accessible registers, produces certain identification, and a discharging payout, eighteen months before the transfer deadline to the Caisse des Dépôts.

The very busy insolvent. After a fire loss attributable to a tradesman, he declares himself insolvent. The investigation reveals a business continued under a new structure in a relative’s name, recent vehicles and apparent real estate. The subrogated recovery, first considered hopeless, is launched and ends in a settlement covering most of the indemnity paid out, and the file, initially headed for a write-off, closes in positive territory for the company.

How much does it cost?

Our assignments start at €85/hour (excl. VAT) (full day €850, volume discounts). Every case gets a free written quote before any commitment, no hidden fees.

A straightforward national search costs a few hundred euros. Genealogical reconstruction or an international leg is quoted per file, with a checkpoint at every stage. Administrative enquiries start from €350 (excl. VAT).

See the full price list.

Frequently asked questions