Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in North Carolina

It depends. If there is a named designated beneficiary of the life insurance and that person is alive, then the insurance proceeds are NOT part of the probate estate. The beneficiary gets those funds and is entitled to do what he or she wants with them. The beneficiary, in addition, gets whatever is devised/bequested to him or her under the will, assuming that there are sufficient assets in the probate estate.

If there is no named designated beneficiary or in the event that all beneficiaries named for the life insurance proceeds are dead, then in that event the life insurance company will pay the proceeds into the estate for the deceased. If that happens, then the funds will become part of the probate estate. Once claims of any creditors or other eswtate expenses are paid, then the proceeds will pass either as the will directs or as part of the residue clause or, if there is no residue clause, to the persons who would be heirs under the intestacy law.

Bottom line - if named designated beneficiary of life insurance is alive, then the insurance money does not go into the probate estate and has nothing to do with probate or that beneficiary's ability to also get whatever is left to him or her under the will.