Husband had loan insured, but bank never told his widow

[csziggy]

56. Unless the partner is familiar with the situation, they are prone to fraud

And it doesn't matter what sex the partner is.

Until my husband retired I handled all the financial dealings. While I try to keep him up to date on various accounts and the details for all our business he still does not have the familiarity I do. I am actively trying to educate him on this stuff, but there are a lot of things that have to be covered.

If the couple in the article in the OP got their mortgage decades ago, the husband could have mentioned the insurance, but the wife may not have remembered during the disruption of losing her partner and all the other things she would have had to handle.

After my father died, my mother - who is intelligent and who can handle business affairs - was overwhelmed with the loss of her partner of 67 years as well as having to handle the funeral arrangements, meetings with attorneys and doctors, and just would not have been able to deal with following up with every detail. My sister was there to help and had already begun sorting out my father's affairs during the last six months of his life - but even now, a year and a half after Dad died, we keep finding additional things about his business affairs.

As for the situation in the OP article the bank and the insurance company clearly knew that the policy existed and had a responsibility to let her know. The wife was responsible enough to keep current with the mortgage payments even during the financial disruption of 2008-2009, so she is not ignorant or an idiot.