Legal Question in Insurance Law in Pennsylvania

1. If the life ins policy designated a specific beneficiary the ins co will pay that person without the need of a "short cert"

2. If the life ins policy designated your grandmother's estate as the beneficiary, then an estate must be registered in the Register of Wills (RW) in the county where grandmom resided. If grandmom had a Will the Will probably designated an executor who is the person who will go to the RW to register the estate. If no Will, the law provides a schedule of the closest relative who will appointed the Administrator. In any case, whoever is the Executor or Administrator can get from RW the short cert. The short cert is just a document with the official seal of the RW that verifies the appointment of the executor or administrator, that you can give to the ins co , banks, etc so you can get the assets of grandmom & place them in an estate bank acct.