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The Uniform Simultaneous Death Act was codified in 1940 and last revised in 1993.As of 2007 eighteen US states and the District of Columbia have adopted the Uniform Simultaneous Death Act to determine inheritance in case of simultaneous death. Simultaneous deaths in a family may occur in common disaster situations. As a part of the Uniform Probate Code some other states have indirectly taken this Act. According to the Act if two or more individuals die within 120 hours of one another, each is deemed to have predeceased the other. However, this law will apply when either there are no Wills or the Wills are silent on this issue.
Due to the Uniform Simultaneous Death Act no property would pass from one dead person to another in case of simultaneous death. According to the provisions the said Act each dead person would be deemed to have survived the others and his property would at once go to his closest living relatives as per the laws of intestacy of the concerned state or jurisdiction. The Act prevents an inheritance from being passed on more times than necessary.
In the absence of the Act property would have passed on unnecessarily from one dead person’s estate to the estate of another dead before eventually going to their closest living relatives according to the degree of kinship. Given this Act in place, none of the dead persons of a family who have passed away within 120 hours of each other, say in a common accident, inherit each others property and their succeed to both estates once only.
If the insured and the beneficiary under a life insurance policy die together, the insured will be deemed to have survived the beneficiary unless otherwise agreed upon. Accordingly, the policy proceeds would go to the designated alternate beneficiary, if there is one. In the absence of such secondary beneficiary, the proceeds would be inherited through the estate of the insured.
(More http://www.law.upenn.edu/bll/archives/ulc/usda/1991FinalAct.htm)
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