Your will doesn't have the final word
Beneficiary designations quietly control more of your estate planning than you might think
You spent time and money on your will. Maybe a trust.
An attorney explained everything carefully, and you left feeling like it was handled.
But there’s a part of your estate plan that your will doesn’t control — and most people never think about it again after the day they set it up.
Beneficiary designations.
These are the forms you filled out when you opened your IRA or signed up for life insurance. You can designate beneficiaries on bank and brokerage accounts too.
They’re quiet. They sit in a file somewhere.
Yet they override everything else.
It doesn’t matter what your will says. The name on that form is who gets the money.
I learned this firsthand through a family experience I wrote about a few years ago.
My father-in-law John had a life insurance policy with his ex-wife listed as the primary beneficiary.
He wanted her to receive those proceeds — but he never confirmed that wish with the insurance company after their divorce.
In Florida, a 2012 law automatically voids an ex-spouse as a beneficiary after divorce.
So even though John’s intentions were clear to his entire family, the insurance company didn’t know.
What followed was a detour through probate court that nobody wanted.
You can read that full story here.
The lesson wasn’t that John did something wrong.
It’s that beneficiary designations require active attention.
Life changes. Laws change.
Beneficiary designations don’t update themselves.
The most common mistake I see
You named your spouse as beneficiary on your 401(k) in 2003. You’ve since divorced and remarried.
But the form still says what it said 20+ years ago.
This is almost never malicious.
It’s just out of sight and out of mind.
Nobody sends you a reminder. Nobody flags it at tax time.
It quietly sits there until the worst possible moment — and then it becomes someone else’s problem to untangle.
Four places to check right now
Beneficiary designations live across your entire financial life, not just in one place. Here’s where to look:
Retirement accounts — IRAs, 401(k)s, Roth IRAs. These are the highest-stakes designations because of the tax implications and the rules around inherited accounts. Who you name here matters enormously.
Life insurance policies — Both employer-provided and individually owned. If you’ve had the same policy for a long time, there’s a good chance the beneficiary hasn’t been reviewed since you bought it.
Non-retirement accounts — Brokerage accounts, bank accounts, and savings accounts can have transfer-on-death or payable-on-death designations — worth checking whether you set them up.
Real estate — Your home often passes through mechanisms that sit outside your will — joint ownership, a trust, or a transfer-on-death deed in states that allow them. Worth confirming the setup still reflects your wishes.
One concept worth understanding: per stirpes vs. per capita
When you name multiple beneficiaries, you’ll sometimes be asked to choose how assets are distributed if one of them dies before you do.
Per capita means the surviving beneficiaries split the share equally among themselves. Per stirpes means the deceased beneficiary’s share passes to their children instead.
I’ve written a full explanation with examples here — it’s worth five minutes of your time, especially if you have children or grandchildren you want to include.
What to do next
Review your beneficiary designations now. Pull up each account type listed above and confirm who is named — primary and contingent.
Compare them to your current wishes. Does the name on the form still match what you’d want today? Does it align with your will or trust?
Set a reminder to review again. I recommend every three years as a baseline, or sooner if something significant changes — a marriage, divorce, death, new grandchild, or updated estate plan.
Ask your advisor to do a sweep with you. This is exactly the kind of thing that’s easy to overlook on your own and easy to catch with a second set of eyes.
The good news: this is easy to update.
Most custodians let you update a beneficiary designation with a simple form. Or you can log in and do it online.
It doesn’t require an attorney. It doesn’t take long. It just requires knowing to do it.
The form you filled out years ago doesn’t have to be the final word. But you have to be the one to update it.
If you have questions about your beneficiary designations, or if you’d like to talk through what a review might look like for your situation, just reply to this email.
I’m happy to help.
Links & things
Wanted to share recent articles from a couple of my favorite UK-based advisors this week…
First, check this out from Dan Haylett. It’s a MUST READ if you ask me…
And here’s another from Nick Lincoln:
I’m curious to hear what you think about these 2 articles, so hit reply or leave a comment and let me know.
Thank you for reading!
If you have a question or would like my advice, simply reply to this email with your questions and I’ll be happy to respond with my thoughts…
Until next Wednesday,
Russ
It is a timely reminder and might be worthwhile to assess everything at regular intervals. I will add it to my calendar.