Does Life Insurance Go Into Estate? 
If a life insurance policy is not owned by an irrevocable life insurance trust or owned by a legal business or charitable entity , it is -LRB- with few a exceptions -RRB- in the policy owners estate . That , in itself , may be a nonevent depending on the size of the estate . If the assets of the estate including the death benefit proceeds total less than the unified credit , there may be very well no federal taxable event . However the resident state has its own exemptions and in most states is considerable less than the federal unified credit . So its important to seek legal counsel to determine the ownership of life insurance . 