Hey everybody, this is Mark at Burgdorf Wealth Management, and this is A Minute on Wealth. Today we’re going to talk about the importance of checking in on your beneficiary designations.
This minute on wealth is a follow up to the virtual “savvy generational planning” seminar that we had last month which I heard back from some of you that it was super helpful!
Verifying your beneficiary designations are super important. You don’t want surprises in this area. In fact, we had a new client that was rolling over his pension plan to our firm and we discovered that his X-wife was still his primary beneficiary!! YIKES!!!
So….When was the last time you checked your beneficiary designations? Most people don’t realize that there are several designations to keep current, especially if you have a specific way you want your legacy to be distributed.
Again, Your beneficiary designations are essential to your legacy planning because if you don’t have a designation on file, then your funds may be distributed according to someone else’s wishes…not yours.
But how do you actually check your designations? That depends on whether you’re an active employee or a retiree. If you are an active employee, you need to check with your employing agency to figure out who your beneficiary is. Check with the office that maintains your Official Personnel Folder, or whatever the equivalent is at your place of employment.
If you don’t know what that office is or how to contact them, check in with your supervisor.
You want to verify not only the beneficiary on your retirement accounts but also your life insurance if any that you have with your employer.
If you are a retiree, then you’ll need to check your Official Personnel Folder online or in writing through the company that offers your retirement plan. However, the records are not maintained online, and your file will have to be retrieved from the archives for a copy to be sent to you, which can take a while.
Many people choose to submit a new form instead of waiting for this response. The new form will take precedence over any form on file, as long as you sign it, have two witnesses sign and complete the rest of the form correctly. Then the newly submitted form will be archived as the newly designated beneficiary.
And obviously, besides verifying your beneficiary designations at work, you should verify your primary and contingent beneficiary designations on all of your personal investment accounts and insurance programs.
The process of checking on your beneficiaries requires several steps and a bit of waiting, which is why it’s so important to stay on top of it. Your advisor here at our office can help you with next steps like these again to make sure that your legacy plan is in proper order.
Lastly, make sure to check out our College Planning Virtual Seminar happening next month, on June 15 at 6:30p.
Families often overpay for college, take on too much debt, and hurt their savings and retirement plans because they’ve tumbled unprepared into the late-stage college funding pressure cooker. We have some great tools to help you avoid the huge “COLLEGE DEBT PROBLEM”
Hope to see you there!