Credit Union Helps Son of Long-Time Member

The credit union staff had nothing to gain from the situation except the joy of knowing that Ann-Marie would have appreciated our extra efforts.
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Ann-Marie joined NYM Federal Credit Union in 1974 while working in food services at NYM Hospital and used the credit union as her primary financial institution, also taking out loans, which she handled efficiently. In November 2014, we were all very saddened to learn that she had passed away. On reviewing her account, we noticed that she had an outstanding loan and also had some funds in her share account that could cover the loan. She had elected to carry insurance on the loan, which would pay the loan in full.

We contacted her son Terence, the beneficiary of record, to request the documents needed to file the insurance claim so that he could benefit from the funds in the savings account instead of using them to pay off the loan. He mistakenly thought we were debt collectors and did not visit the office even though we pursued him for weeks on a daily basis, doing our best to convince him that we wanted to help. We later learned that he became homeless after his mother died and was living in a shelter. When he finally realized we were trying to help, he had no way to get to the credit union and no money to obtain a copy of the death certificate we needed for the insurance claim. The credit union gave him money for the death certificate and travel for a day, and the claim was paid. On the day that Terence picked up the funds from his mother's account, he thanked us from the bottom of his heart. He said that we went above and beyond our obligations, pursuing him even when he showed no interest in the matter. The credit union staff had nothing to gain from the situation except the joy of knowing that Ann-Marie would have appreciated our extra efforts. We also directed Terence to his mother's former employer to see what additional benefits he would qualify for. We hope that our efforts put Terence in a better place.

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