Alexander | Wagner | Kinman
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Practice Areas
  • Learning & Resource Center
  • Talk to Us

Estate Planning: Beneficiary Designations

7/9/2018

 
Effective estate planning is more than creating a will. As part of the process, it is essential to examine beneficiary designations on accounts such as life insurance policies and retirement accounts. Generally, these beneficiary designations will override any provisions in a will or a trust.

For example, John married Jane twenty years ago when John first started working at BigCorp where he opted into a generous employer sponsored retirement plan. Jane was named as the sole beneficiary of John’s retirement. After fifteen years, John and Jane divorced. John later married Joanna and created a will that named Joanna as the sole beneficiary of all of his assets. However, John forgot to update his retirement plan’s beneficiary designation. Upon John’s death, the retirement account’s beneficiary designation overrode his will and the proceeds were distributed to Jane and not John’s intended beneficiary, his second wife Joanna. Unless Joanna can convince Jane to send her the proceeds, Jane is going to have to go to court and pursue potentially costly litigation to fight this distribution.

A simple change of beneficiary form was all that was needed to avoid this situation. When creating an estate plan, these types of issues need to be examined. To discuss an estate plan to ensure that your assets go to who you intend, contact Jesse Bowman at the law office of Alexander, Wagner & Kinman (513-228-1100).

This information is intended to provide broad, general information about the law and is not intended to be legal advice. Before applying this information to a specific legal problem, readers are urged to seek advice from a licensed attorney


Comments are closed.

    Authors

    Attorneys Jesse Bowman; Max Kinman; Chris Alexander: David Wagner

    Archives

    February 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017

    Categories

    All
    AWK Legal News
    Bankruptcy
    Domestic Relations
    Employment Law
    Estate Planning
    General Ohio Law
    Legal Resources
    Property Law
    Traffic Law

    RSS Feed

Home

About Us

Practice Areas

Learning & Resource Center



Talk to Us

423 Reading Road, Mason, Ohio 45040
AWK Legal LLC © 2019

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Practice Areas
  • Learning & Resource Center
  • Talk to Us