A Gold Coast father has launched a legal battle to claim his daughter's life insurance policy who died while fighting for Islamic extremists after being "tricked" into travelling to Syria.

IntrustSuper has refused to pay out the life insurance of former Sea World employee Amira Karroum because of her ties to Al Qaeda when she was shot and dismembered in Syria in 2014, the Courier Mail reports.

Her father, Mohamed Karroum, 72, has engaged lawyers in a bid to access the $300,000 life insurance policy, which he is demanding be honoured because he says his daughter was tricked into travelling to Syria before it was illegal to do so.

"They will not pay because you are not supposed to travel there but the law came in after Amira was killed," Mr Karroum told the newspaper.

"They said you can't have (the money) because she went to a place she is not supposed to go.

"It was not illegal to go there until a year later, so she has done nothing wrong. (The extremists) got to her when she moved to Sydney at the mosque in Auburn. They all tricked her."

Mr Karroum said his daughter was tricked into believe she was going to assist in humanitarian work, not to fight.

"They shot my little girl in the head and cut her arms off," he said.

"These are the people we are dealing with over there and she just got caught up in it all."

IntrustSuper has declined to comment on the case.