Beneficiary Designations
Designate beneficiaries to inherit your accounts. Name at least primary beneficiaries and secondary beneficiaries.
To designate beneficiaries, contact your employer for employee accounts such as stock purchase plans and 401 (K) plans, financial advisors for IRA and investment accounts, insurance companies for insurance policies, and financial institutions for bank accounts and other assets they manage for you.
You want to designate beneficiaries for your accounts for 3 reasons:
Assets that pass by beneficiary designations are not part of the probate estate and therefore, do not have to be used to pay a deceased’s creditors;
The Executor or Administrator does not have to be named before you can transfer these assets; most financial institutions require only a death certificate to begin the transfer process, so the funds are typically available sooner than assets that have to flow through the probate estate; and
It’s free! You don’t have to pay someone to draw up documents to direct how these assets are to be distributed. You will want documents to address the distribution of other assets, but you can control the distribution of these assets and change the distribution as often as you see fit, at no cost to you.
Designating beneficiaries is only a piece of the puzzle, but it is a critical piece of the puzzle.
If you have questions, call me. If you have children under the age of majority, look for my next post!
Many thanks!
Barb
Failure to share
It all begins with an idea.
Don’t leave your loved ones high and dry. Give us a call today to help
Failure to share.
In the past week I have spoken with several people who have contacted me because they have lost a loved one, their father, their grandmother, their brother, and another family member has the deceased’s planning documents but refuses to share them.
Don’t let this happen to your loved ones.
Share your planning documents with anyone who loves you enough to want to ensure that your wishes are carried out. We make it easy for you to do so.
Life events, such as marriage, the birth of a child, and death, all have legal ramifications on your planning documents. If you have or expect you may experience a life changing event, call me to understand what that life event means for your planning documents to ensure that what you want to happen actually does happen.
Leave a legacy of love, kindness and compassion.