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You may have a "verbal agreement" with your mom that your are going to do one thing or another with the money you will get from the insurance policy. If so, that is not enforceable, and you can do with the money what you and your mom discussed or not. Bottom line is if mom named you beneficiary of the insurance policy the money is yours to do with as you choose, and you have no other legal obligations.
Nothing other than paying upfront for her funeral. Call a funeral home and see if you can assign the policy to them if you don't have burial funds.
The death certificate is issued after the funeral/burial/cremation by the county within 30 days in my case. The funeral home in most cases notifies social security of the death and the VA too.
If the insurance policy is your mother's only asset I would imagine she intended for it to cover her funeral expenses. Unless she has already taken care of that.
That is the only thing I can think of that you may be morally responsible for.
If you still have time, you may want to make the funeral arrangements now. When the doctors told me my father had perhaps only weeks to live, I went to the mortuary for "pre-planning" and I'm so glad I did. I learned that you can pay up front for a policy that will lock in the prices of what you select, and allow you to make decisions in a (somewhat) less emotional state of mind, possible saving yourself or the estate expenses that might come from grief, guilt or impulse at the time of death.
In the event that all her resources are spent while she lives and your loved one needs to rely on Medicaid for further hospital or nursing home costs, the money you put into this pre-planning policy is NOT considered an asset, when Medicaid calculates the spend-down. So it's protected, where other assets, such as a house, would not be protected.
My father lived about 9 months longer after the doctors said he only had weeks left. We were within just a few months of running out of his savings to pay for the nursing home. (Thank goodness I had him in my home for 4 years before we had to make the nursing home decision.) But I never had to worry about paying for acceptable -nice but not extravagant- funeral and burial expenses, which would have otherwise had to come out-of-pocket from me and my siblings.
I may be writing this after the fact of your loss, and if so, please accept my condolences. If not, you have my heartfelt sympathy for what you're experiencing now, because in many ways, watching her suffer and waiting for the inevitable is also very difficult. No matter when it comes, the loss of a parent is hard and sad.
Almost every institution (bank, insurance, etc.) that you will be dealing with will require an ORIGINAL of the death certificate to be sent (and doesn't get returned) in order to pay OR in order to cease collection on a debt.. So think about how many you'll need and add 3 to that number. Good luck and stay positive.
You may have gathered all the Important Papers already, but if not, or if Mom did not prepare any, try to find out from Mom or from any papers you might be able to find some of her wishes for care and for the funeral.
What you do is make sure you get death certificates as you will need to send these in with claim forms. You call Social Security and any pensions to report the death. They will be very kind and offer their condolences and tell you about when payments are stopped, if any might need recouped, etc. You can call the insurance company on the policy and they will also generally be helpful and send you forms and give you some instruction also. If you are executor, read any instructions there might be to you from the Will, have copies ready for banks so you can wrap up bills, reimbursements she may be due, etc. with her account. If you can get online access for her account it will be a huge help; technically you shoudl not do that unless you are POA. However, POA ends at death and then you have to be Executor and/or Trustee if assets are in a trust. You can find a lot of information by Googling "what to do when someone dies." Sometimes there is a lot, sometimes not so much if there has been a lot of pre-planning. It can be very overhwelming and yet at times it is awfully good to have something tangible to do - somehow it makes you feel better, whether its a distraction from the full force of grief or just lets you feel useful and not quite as helpless...
hugs