Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Georgia

Life insurance can only be paid to the beneficiary, or, if there is no living beneficiary, to the estate through the administrator. Unless you were the beneficiary, why would you expect the money.

As to funeral bills, if you made the arrangements you likely will be held responsible for the bill.

Since you have obviously left out quite a few facts that matter, no specific answer other than these general answers is possible.

However, obviously, if you chose to be administrator you did not do that pro se (which would be extremely foolish) and did get counsel. You should be asking your questions to your lawyer, who should be directing all your steps. So ask your lawyer. That's why you hire one.

Life insurance proceeds are non-probate assets and are paid to the designated beneficiary, in this case, your father or your father's estate. You don't indicate if any of them had a will or if the policy on your brother had a contingent beneficiary.

Assuming this was Georgia and that your father inherited everything when your mother passed, it would shake out like this:

Since brother died after father but father was beneficiary of the life insurance policy, the benefits would be paid to father's estate if no alternate beneficiary was named. Father's estate distributes the money as per his will or via the intestacy laws. Since you claim to be an administrator, I assume there was no will. That means that you and your siblings would each inherit 1/4th. The 1/4th share for your deceased brother would be paid to his estate since he died after your father and would be distributed to his heirs euther as per his will or via intestacy if he had no will. Basically, the heirs of your brother would he his spouse, if any, and his children. If his child was "illegitimate" did your brother live in Georgia? If so, illegitimate children cannot inherit from the father unless the father legitimated the child. If your brother had only one child, then the child gets all your brother's property.

Regarding the funeral, that is the responsibility of your brother's estate. Since you signed the papers, you will need to file a claim with your brother's estate for reimbursement of these expenses.

I don't understand why your father's estate would be liable for your brother's funeral bills. And I don't necessarily think the insurance company has released the funds to the wrong person. It may be that your brother was named as a contingent beneficiary since your father died. If that is the case, then the insurance company properly paid the claim to your brother's estate.

Since you are the administrator of your father's estate, you will need to speak to the insurance company about getting a copy of the policy and beneficiary form and you will have to ask them why the insurance proceeds were remitted to the estate of your brother rather than your father.

If you have counsel, then you need to be speaking to your attorney about these matters. Its not fair to ask an attorney here to second guess counsel who has had the opportunity to review the legal documents and who knows all of the facts. If you don't have an attorney, you need to think about getting one to help probate your father's estate.