"Mother Who Had No Contact for 54 Years Appears to Claim Insurance Money After Son's Death"

A photo taken with older sister Ms. A before younger brother (left) went missing due to a fishing boat sinking. [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Hwang Sumi] A mother who remarried and left when her children were young, and had no contact for 54 years, is now claiming her deceased son's insurance money, causing the bereaved family to express their grievances.

On the 12th, Yonhap News reported that Ms. A, a woman in her 60s living in Busan, is recently in a dispute with her mother, whom she met after decades, over her younger brother's death insurance money.

According to the report, Ms. A's younger brother, who worked as a deckhand on a fishing boat, went missing when the boat sank off the coast of Geoje Island early last year. The death insurance money for the missing brother amounts to 250 million won, and the settlement money from the shipping company is close to 50 million won.

The problem is that this money is expected to be received by their mother, who remarried another man and left when Ms. A was 6 and her brother was 3, and has since cut off contact.

Under current law, if the deceased has no spouse or children, inheritance rights go to the parents. Ms. A explained that her brother was unmarried and their father passed away before her brother was born.

The National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives, which pays the insurance, stated, "Since the case is clearly a disappearance, the insurance money can be paid within a week upon submission of the documents."

In fact, it is known that the mother intends to receive the entire amount without sharing it with Ms. A and others. Yonhap News reported that Ms. A's mother's son from her remarriage, Mr. B, has hired a lawyer to pursue the receipt of this insurance and settlement money.

Ms. A lamented, "We were raised by our grandmother and aunt, and when times were tough, we moved from relative to relative. How can someone who never once came to see us claim the deceased son's insurance money?"

She added, "My missing brother lived his entire life without knowing our mother's face. If she has a conscience, she should take only half of the brother's insurance money and let the rest be shared among us siblings and the aunt who raised us."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.