A New Holiday For You - Beneficiary Day

A new Holiday for You – Beneficiary Day

July 1^st, from now on to be known as beneficiary day in your life.

Set a calendar reminder every July 1^st from now on, the day in which you will spend a few minutes to think about who you have listed as your beneficiaries.  The first time you do this it may take a bit more time, but then every year after that will be easy.

Too many of us have outdated beneficiary designations.  A beneficiary designation legally transfers ownership of property to the named beneficiary at your demise.  It is critically important to make sure your assets are transferring to the desired beneficiary.  They are common on life insurance policies, annuities, IRAs, Roth IRAs, transfer on death bank and brokerage accounts,  retirement plans, and other workplace benefits.

It seems about every two or three years we get the call, my spouse passed away, and I found out the former spouse is still the beneficiary.  Believe it or not, most times we have been able to get the asset to the current spouse, with the help of the ex.  But we don’t want to have to do that for you!

It might not be a divorce issue. Maybe the beneficiary is a parent who has died since you made the designation.  Maybe it names your 2 children, but now you have 4.  Maybe it is the significant other you broke up with 4 years ago.  Maybe it is your parents who are still alive, but you have been married now for ten years and have 3 kids.  It could be you left it blank, or wrote my estate, which is almost always the wrong choice.

There might be some planning opportunities available with beneficiary designations if you want to make a charitable transfer at death, IRAs and retirement plans are great vehicles to make that gift, but you need to name the charity as beneficiary for it to work.

Whatever the issue might be, the plan is to eliminate the issue by making sure each July 1^st you look at your beneficiary checklist.  And also, contingent beneficiaries in case the person you name passes prior to you.

So, the first year you might have to gather some information, every year after than you just need to look at your list and make sure you do not want any changes.

Click the link below to open the document.  Click "save as" on your computer and save it into your documents folder on your computer.  You can edit the information as you need to.  

 

Beneficiary Checklist Word Document
 

BENEFICIARY AUDIT CHECKLIST                     Document Date: ____________________________

 

Account/Document Name	Location of Document	Provider Name	Dollar Amount	Primary Beneficiary	Contingent Beneficiary
Will	Law office	Xxx Lawyers	N/A	Spouse	Kids
Trust	Safe	N/A	N/A	Kids	N/A
Term Life	My office	Lincoln	$1,000,000	Spouse	Kids
Whole Life	My office	Penn Mutual	$500,000	Trust	N/A
Variable Life	My office	Nationwide	$250,000	Spouse	Kids
Variable Annuity	My office	Jackson	$112,000	Spouse	Kids
Traditional IRA	My office	Diversified Capital	$183,000	Church	N/A
Roth IRA	My office	Diversified Capital	$28,000	Spouse	Kids
Deferred Compensation	My office	Work	$200,000	Spouse	Kids
Other
Other
Other
Other