Legal Question in Insurance Law in California

Re: Can I Contest a Claim?

I'm sorry to hear about your loss.

It sounds like the policy was payable to your mother's husband if he survived her or, if he had alredy died, to you. Since he survived her the insurer has to pay the money to him. By making the payment you describe, the insurance company was doing what its contract required it to do. The insurer cannot make you a beneficiary even if it wants to.

The only way around this would be if the insurer misled your mother at the time she signed the policy and led her to think you would get half of it. Your mother's intent alone does not affect her husband's rights under the policy, but if the insurer knew of that intent, agreed to implement it and failed to do so, you may have a claim.