Surrendering Endowment Policies
Once the insured person dies, the insurer will need to have proof of this in an acceptable form. For instance a minimum requirement of this may be a death certificate - additionally, the insurer will need to have a claim form signed and completed and possibly also notarized. In case of suspicious death and where there is a large amount of money at stake, the insurer may choose to make an investigation for the surroundings of it, if in fact they are obliged to make the payment. In terms of the payment of the policy, this might be as a total amount or otherwise as an annual payment, that is paid out over time in regular amounts - this can either be for a certain amount of time or the recipient's lifetime.
As for general life insurance contract terms, there may be special suicide clauses whereby the policy will become null in that eventuality - for instance if this happens within 2 years of the policy being taken out. Furthermore, if there were misrepresentations that were made, then this could be taken as a ground for nullification. In terms of contestability, it is reported that most US states will not allow for longer than 2 years - however, if the insured person dies within that amount of time the insurer would have a legal right to argue regarding misrepresentation and require further information before making or denying a payment.