Not quite. From the article ...
The company is asking that the court appoint a guardian ad litem to represent the interest of the two children, and is asking that it deposit the life insurance benefits plus interest with the court, for the court’s determination on where the money should go.
The guardian ad litem (likely an attorney) is just to represent the interest of the children not the estate and they want to deposit the money with the court rather than the estate. The guardian ad litem has to be paid. With the one policy for $400K where the children are contingent beneficiaries they are trying to bypass the primary beneficiary.
This seems like either some kind of law enforcement end run to try to obtain statements that they otherwise cannot obtain - he has to have a lawyer with the way law enforcement has been acting - or a way to tie up funds so if they charge him he can't afford private defense attorneys. Certainly, law enforcement wanted this in the news as I doubt that the newspaper just happened upon the case in PACER.
If anyone has PACER access they should be able to pull this case and see what, if any, information it contains that we haven't heard about yet. Or better yet, just who the defendants are that New York Life is not in collusion with. Is it him? Her family? Law enforcement? A prosecutor? The State of Missouri? More than one of these?